THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 


GIFT  OF 


Sara  Bard  Field  Wood 


World  Series 


THE  POEMS 

OF 
EDGAR  ALLAN  POE 


FROM  visions  of  Apollo 
And  of  Astarte's  bliss, 
He  ga^ed  into  the  hollow 

And  hopeless  vale  of  Dis ; 
And  though  earth  were  surrounded 
By  heaven,  it  still  was  mounded 
With  graves.    His  soul  had  sounded 
The  dolorous  abyss. 

No  singer  of  old  story 

Luting  accustomed  lays, 
No  harper  for  new  glory, 

No  mendicant  for  praise, 
He  struck  high  chords  and  splendid, 
Wherein  were  fiercely  blended 
Tones  that  unfinished  ended 

With  his  unfinished  days. 

JOHN    HENRY    BONER 


EDOAK    ALLAN    POE 

FHOM  A  DAGUERREOTYPE  TAKEN  IN  PROVIDENCE  NOV.  14.  13-18.  AND 
PRESENTED  BY  POE.  ON  THE  SAME  DAY,  TO  MRS.  SARAH  HELEN 
WHITMAN;  NOW  THE  PROPERTY  OF  BROWN  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARY. 


THE  POEMS  OF 
EDGAR  ALLAN  POE 

WITH  AN  ESSAY  ON  HIS  POETRY 
BY  ANDREW  LANG 


Portland,  Maine 
17/0 WAS  *B. 

Mdccccvi 


This  Second  Edition 
on  Van  Gelder  paper 
consists  of  925  copies. 


GIFT 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

FOREWORD ix 

THE  POETRY  OF  EDGAR  ALLAN  POE  xv 

PREFACE,  1845           •        •        •        •  2 

DEDICATION,  1845      ....  3 
POEMS : 

I      THE    RAVEN               ...  5 

II       THE    BELLS    ....  12 

III  ULALUME  16 

IV  BRIDAL  BALLAD  2O 
V      LENORE             ....  22 

VI      TO   HELEN       ....  24 

VII      ANNABEL  LEE          ...  27 

VIII       FOR  ANNIE    ....  29 

IX      TO  F S  S.  O D.      .            .  33 


315 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

x  TO  —                      ...  34 

XI  THE  CITY  IN  THE  SEA    .            .  35 

XII  THE  CONQUEROR  WORM          .  37 

XIII  THE   SLEEPER           •            •            •  39 

XIV  THE  COLISEUM        ...  42 

XV  DREAM-LAND            ...  44 

XVI  EULALIE          ....  46 

XVII  TO  MY  MOTHER      ...  47 

XVIII  ELDORADO      ....  48 

xix  TO  F —          ....  49 

XX  TO  ONE  IN  PARADISE     .            .  50 

XXI      HYMN 51 

XXII  A   DREAM  WITHIN  A   DREAM  52 

XXIII  TO  ZANTE        •            •            •            •  53 

XXIV  THE  HAUNTED  PALACE             .  54 

XXV  SILENCE           ....  56 

XXVI  ISRAFEL            ....  57 

XXVII      TO  M.  L.  S ...  59 

XXVIII  THE  VALLEY  OF  UNREST         .  60 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

POEMS  WRITTEN  IN  YOUTH: 

NOTE,  1845 62 

I      TO  HELEN        ....  63 

II       SONNET  —  TO  SCIENCE               .  64 

III       SPIRITS  OF  THE  DEAD     .            .  65 

IV      FAIRY-LAND               ...  66 

V      THE  LAKE  —  TO—       -      .            .  68 

VI       A  DREAM          ....  69 

VII       ALONE                 ....  70 

VIII      TO  —                    .            .            .            .  71 

IX      TO  THE  RIVER  —  .  .72 

x     TO-                                        .  73 

xi     SONG      .....  74 

XTI       ROMANCE         •            •            •            •  75 

To  EDGAR  ALLAN  POE     ...  77 


FOREWORD 


"  I  would  define,  in  brief,  the  Poetry 
of  words  as  The  Rhythmical  Creation 
of  Beauty." 


EDGAR    ALLAN    POE. 


FOREWORD 

IN  this  edition  of  the  poems  of  Edgar 
Allan  Poe,  Tamerlane,  Al  Aaraaf  and 
the  unfinished  Politian  which,  according  to 
Mr.  E.  C.  Stedman,  "were  the  outcome  of 
perseverance,  and  not  written  with  the  zest 
that  ministers  to  one  doing  what  he  is  born 
to  do,"  are  not  to  be  found.  To  have 
brought  together  every  scrap  of  verse  and  its 
variant  was,  in  our  opinion,  to  have  rendered 
scant  justice  or  even  fair  play  to  Poe's  fame 
as  a  great  metrical  artist.  If  his  Note  to 
this  early  work  is  accepted  as  truthful  it 
should  also  be  more  literally  and  liberally 
construed  to  his  advantage.  According  to 
that  Note  what  we  find  there  was  reprinted 
with  specific  "  reference  to  the  sin  of  plagia 
rism  and  to  the  date  of  Tennyson's  first 
poems."  Surely,  if  ever,  the  time  has  come 
when  we  can  safely  relegate  such  juvenilia 
to  the  limbo  of  dead  things :  it  has  had  its 
day  and  should  now  cease  to  rise  up  and 
vex  us. 

After  all  it  is  not  so  much  that  we  do  take 
away ;  for  out  of  a  total  of  forty-six  poems, 

xi 


FOREWORD 

exclusive  of  the  three  longer  pieces  named 
above,  six  only  are  omitted,  two  of  which 
it  is  some  satisfaction  to  know  originally 
appeared  under  Gris wold's  editorship,^  while 
the  other  four  belong  to  the  volume  of  1827. 
One  might  indeed  wish  to  cancel  the  later 
To  Helen,  the  lines  To  M.  L.  S ,  and  To 

,  written  as  they  are  in  the  language 

of  mere  literary  philandering:  banal  expres 
sions  of  long  faded  compliment  that  placed 
beside  the  earlier  To  Helen  and  the  later  if 
not  the  last  invocation  to  a  beloved  woman 
—  For  Annie  —  suffer  an  immeasurable  and 
most  miserable  sea  change ! 

To  restate  our  position  without  risk  of 
misunderstanding:  the  text  as  here  pre 
sented  contains  what,  with  the  few  excep 
tions  just  noted,  will  endure  as  long  as 
American  literature  endures.  If  the  youth 
ful  outpourings  are  ever  again  put  forth 

i  The  Works  of  the  Late  Edgar  Allan  Poe:  with 
notices  of  His  Life  and  Genius  by  N.  P.  Willis,  J.  R. 
Lowell,  and  R.  W .  Griswold.  New  York:  J.  S. 
Redfield.  1850.  2  vols.  lamo.  Portrait.  Pp.  xx 

483  5495- 

The  same.     3  vols.     i2mo.     Portrait.     1850. 

The  same.     4  vols.     lamo.     1853. 

Griswold  printed  A  Valentine  and  A  n  Enigma, 
which  are  as  near  absolute  rubbish  as  verse  can  be. 
The  four  earlier  pieces  are  "  The  happiest  day,  the 
happiest  hour •,"  (24  lines,)  Stanzas,  (32  lines,)  Evening- 
Star,  (23  lines,)  and  Dreams,  (34  lines). 


FOREWORD 

they  should  not  be  obtruded  and  made 
much  of ;  rather,  if  needs  must  be,  given  in 
the  shape  of  verbatim  or  facsimile  reprints, 
a  proceeding  both  desirable  and  justifiable, 
if  only  from  the  extreme  rarity  of  Foe's 
three  earliest  volumes.1 

But  for  the  lover  of  verse  who  is  not  par 
ticularly  attracted  by  various  readings  and 
critical  annotations^  who  on  the  contrary 
delights  in  poetry  without  alloy,  the  great 
things  of  the  Master  which  will  perish  never, 
should  be  set  forth  with  befitting  austerity. 


1  Tamerlane,  and  Other  Poems.     By  a  Bostonian. 
Boston:  Calvin  F.  S.  Thomas,  1827.     i2mo.     Wrap 
pers.     40  pp. 

A  i  A  araaf,  Tamerlane,  and  Minor  Poems,  By 
Edgar  Allan  Poe.  Baltimore  :  Hatch  and  Dunning, 
1829.  8vo.  71  pp. 

Poems  by  Edgar  Allan  Poe.  Second  edition.  New 
York  :  Elam  Bliss,  1831.  i2mo.  124  pp. 

The  first  and  only  collected  edition  prepared  by  the 
poet  was  The  Raven  and  Other  Poems.  By  Edgar 
Allan  Poe.  New  York:  Wiley  and  Putnam,  1845. 
i2ino.  Pp.  viii-r-gi. 

2  For  those  who  seek  all  possible  aid  in  reconstruct 
ing  the  poetic  mind  in  its  successive  stages  of  rhythmic 
evolution  The  Works  of  Edgar  Allan  Poe,  newly  col 
lected  and  edited,  with  a  Memoir,  Critical  Introdtic- 
tion,  and  Notes,  by  Edmund  Clarence  Stedman  and 
George  Edward  Woodberry,  (octavo,  10  vols.,  Chicago, 
1894-5,)  must  be  taken  as  the  culmination  of  half  a 
century's  appreciation  and  research. 


FOREWORD 

Once  the  minor  deductions  indicated  by  us 
are  made  and  the  poetic  necessity  for  so 
doing  admitted,  we  may  enter  into  the  full 
joy  of  what  for  all  time  is  the  unmatched 
and  unmatchable  book  of  Beauty. 

Group  as  you  will  The  Haunted  Palace, 
Israfel,  The  City  in  the  Sea,  Ulalume,  The 
Conqueror  Worm,  To  One  in  Paradise, 
Dream-Land,  The  Sleeper,  For  Annie,  and 
Annabel  Lee,  they  are  each  and  every  minted 
gold  and  bear  the  image  and  superscription 
of  the  king.  Let  us  then  concern  ourselves 
only  with  these  —  the  real  and  undying 
glories  of  Poe's  genius.  To  hold  the  cour 
age  of  one's  convictions  in  such  a  matter 
is  in  the  deepest  sense  to  render  the  highest 
possible  service  to  the  memory  of  that  most 
unhappy  master  of  imperishable  lyric  verse. 

"  Farewell,  thou  Titan  fairer  than  the  Gods  ! 

Farewell,  farewell,  thou  swift  and  lovely  spirit. 
Thou  splendid  warrior  with  the  world  at  odds, 

Unpraised,  unpraisable,  beyond  thy  merit ; 
Chased,  like  Orestes,  by  the  Furies'  rods, 

Like  him  at  length  thy  peace  dost  thou  inherit ! 
Beholding  whom,  men  think  how  fairer  far 
Than  all  the  steadfast  stars  the  wandering  star  ! ' ' 


THE    POETRY 

OF 
EDGAR    ALLAN    POE 


4  4  T  ET  the  dullard  go  home  and  thank  God 
Lrf  for  that  superior  virtue  which  per 
mits  him  to  drink  his  muddy  beer  in  peace ;  let 
him  also  reflect  that  ho  wine  could  purchase 
for  him  the  dreams,  the  poems,  the  hopes  which 
it  purchased  for  Poe.  That  his  death  was 
tragic  and  premature  is,  alas!  indisputable. 
And  here,  again,  has  been  an  occasion  for  much 
foolishness.  He  died,  like  Marlowe  and  many 
another  man  of  genius,  in  the  street,  unheeded, 
almost  unrecognised.  But  he  died  at  his  own 
time,  when  his  work  was  done,  a  victim  to  the 
stolid  stupidity  of  circumstance.  He  was 
great,  not  on  account  of  his  fraility,  which  the 
foolish  sometimes  mistake  for  talent,  but  in  his 
fraility' s  despite ;  and  he  yields  not  in  good 
fortune  to  the  mirror  of  respectability,  whose 
sole  congratulation  is  that  his  unremembered 
and  useless  life  trickles  out  amiably  in  bed." 

CHARLES    WHIBLEY. 

(Studies  in  Frankness,  1898.) 


THE  POETRY 

OF 
EDGAR  ALLAN   POE 

THE  life  of  Edgar  Allan  Poe  is,  fortunately, 
a  subject  that  but  little  concerns  readers 
of  his  poetry.  As  far  as  the  events  of  his 
career  illustrate  the  enigmatic  character  of 
his  genius,  we  have,  perhaps,  a  right  to 
inquire  about  them.  We  may  imagine  that 
from  parents  of  semi-Celtic  stock  and  artistic 
profession  he  inherited  his  genius,  and  that 
his  pride  and  perversity  came  from  his  train 
ing  by  a  wealthy  injudicious  foster-father. 
But  the  legend  or  myth  of  his  errors  and 
misfortunes,  so  often  told  and  retold  by 
posthumous  malice  or  by  too  fond  indul 
gence,  is  really  no  affair  of  ours.  Poe's 
career  is  still  a  topic  that  excites  controversy 
in  America.  The  spite  of  his  first  biographer, 
Griswold,  was  begetting  a  natural  reaction 
when  Mr.  Ingram  published  his  "  Edgar  Allan 
Poe  "  (London,  1880),  and  unwittingly  stirred 
up  the  hatred  of  surviving  scandal-mongers. 
Men  are  alive  who  knew  Poe,  and  who 
suffered  from  his  scornful  criticism.  To  find 


THE    POETRY    OF 

their  dead  enemy  defended  by  an  Englishman 
excited  their  spleen,  and,  for  other  reasons, 
fairer  American  critics  were  not  conciliated. 
The  defence  of  this  luckless  man  of  genius  is 
not,  and  cannot  be,  a  wholly  successful  one. 
The  viler  charges  and  insinuations  of  Gris- 
wold  may  be  refuted,  but  no  skill  can  make 
Poe  seem  an  amiable  or  an  ascetic  human 
being.  It  is  natural  that  admirers  of  a 
poet's  genius  should  wish  to  think  well  of 
the  man,  should  wish  to  see  him  among  the 
honourable,  gentle,  kindly,  and  wise.  But 
Poe  wanted  as  a  man  what  his  poetry  also 
lacks;  he  wanted  humanity.  Among  the 
passions,  he  was  familiar  with  pride,  and  with 
the  intolerable  regret,  the  life-long  desiderium 
which,  having  lost  the  solitary  object  of  its 
love,  can  find  among  living  men  and  women 
no  more  than  the  objects  of  passing  sentiment 
and  affectionate  caprice.  Love,  as  the  poets 
have  known  it,  from  Catullus  to  Coventry 
Patmore,  love,  whether  wild  and  feverish  or 
stable  and  domestic,  appears  to  have  been 
to  him  unknown.  And  by  this  it  is  not 
meant  that  Poe  was  not  an  affectionate 
husband  of  his  wife,  but  that  the  stronger 
part  of  his  affections,  the  better  element  of 
his  heart,  had  burned  away  before  he  was  a 
man.  He  knew  what  he  calls  "  that  sorrow 
which  the  living  love  to  cherish  for  the  dead, 


EDGAR    ALLAN    POE 

and  which,  in  some  minds,  resembles  the 
delirium  of  opium."  His  spirit  was  always 
beating  against  the  gate  of  the  grave,  and 
the  chief  praise  he  could  confer  on  a  woman  ' 
in  his  maturity  was  to  compare  her  to  one 
whom  he  had  lost  while  he  was  still  a  boy. 
"For  months  after  her  decease,"  says  Mr. 
Ingram,  "  Poe  .  .  .  would  go  nightly  to  visit 
the  tomb  of  his  revered  friend,  and  when  the 
nights  were  very  drear  and  cold,  when  the 
autumnal  rains  fell,  and  the  winds  wrailed 
mournfully  over  the  graves,  he  lingered 
longest  and  came  away  most  regretfully." 

The  truth  of  this  anecdote  will  be  more 
important  for  our  purpose  than  a  world  of 
controversies  as  to  whether  Poe  was  expelled 
from  school,  or  gambled,  or  tippled,  or  why 
he  gave  up  the  editorship  of  this  or  that 
journal.  We  see  him  preoccupied,  even  in 
his  boyhood,  with  the  thought  of  death  and 
of  the  condition  of  the  dead.  In  his  prose 
romances  his  imagination  is  always  morbidly 
busy  with  the  secrets  of  the  sepulchre.  His 
dead  men  speak,  his  corpses  hold  long  collo 
quies  with  themselves,  his  characters  are 
prematurely  buried  and  explore  the  veiled 
things  of  corruption,  his  lovers  are  led  wan 
dering  among  the  hie  jacets  of  the  dead. 
This  is  the  dominant  note  of  all  his  poetry, 
this  wistful  regret,  almost  hopeless  of  any 


THE   POETRY    OF 

reunion  of  departed  souls  in  "the  distant 
Aidenn,"  and  almost  fearful  that  the  sleep 
of  the  dead  is  not  dreamless. 

"  The  lady  sleeps  !    Oh  may  her  sleep, 
Which  is  enduring,  so  be  deep  ! 

I  pray  to  God  that  she  may  lie 

Forever  with  unopened  eye, 

While  the  dim  sheeted  ghosts  go  by!" 

Thus  Poe's  verse  is  so  far  from  being  a 
"criticism  of  life,"  that  it  is  often,  in  literal 
earnest,  a  criticism  of  death ;  and  even  when 
his  thoughts  are  not  busy  with  death,  even 
when  his  heart  is  not  following  some  Lenore 
or  Annabel  Lee  or  Ulalume,  his  fancy  does 
not  deal  with  solid  realities,  with  human 
passions.  He  dwells  in  a  world  more  vapor 
ous  than  that  of  Shelley's  "  Witch  of  Atlas," 
in  a  region  where  dreaming  cities  crumble 
into  fathomless  seas,  in  a  fairyland  with 
"  dim  vales  and  shadowy  woods,"  in  haunted 
palaces,  or  in  a  lost  and  wandering  star. 

Not  only  was  Poe's  practice  thus  limited, 
but  his  theory  of  poetry  was  scarcely  more 
extensive.  He  avowed  that  "  melancholy  is 
the  most  legitimate  of  all  the  poetical  tones." 
This  preference  was,  doubtless,  caused  by 
Poe's  feeling  that  melancholy  is  the  emotion 


xx 


EDGAR   ALLAN    POE 

most  devoid  of  actual  human  stuff,  the  most 
etherealised,  so  to  speak,  the  least  likely  to 
result  in  action.  Poetry  he  defined  as  "  the 
rhythmical  creation  of  beauty,"  and  beauty 
was  in  his  eyes  most  beautiful  when  it  was 
least  alloyed  with  matter.  Thus  such  topics 
as  war,  patriotism,  prosperous  love,  religion, 
duty,  were  absolutely  alien  to  the  genius  of 
Poe.  He  carried  his  theory  to  the  absurd 
length  of  preferring  Fouque's  "Undine"  to 
the  works  of  "  fifty  Molieres."  There  is  no 
poet  more  full  of  humanity  than  Moliere,  and 
no  creature  of  fancy  so  empty  as  Undine,  a 
sprite  who  is  no  more  substantial  than  a 
morning  shower,  a  vapour  more  evanescent 
than  a  solar  myth.  Poe,  who  liked  the  mel 
ancholy  moods  of  this  waste-watery  sprite 
better  than  all  the  mirth  and  tenderness  and 
passion  of  the  Mascarilles  and  Alcestes,  the 
Don  Juans  and  Tartuffes,  was  also  of  opinion 
that  no  poem  could  be  long.  The  "  Iliad  " 
and  the  "Odyssey,"  he  thought,  were  mis 
takes;  they  carried  too  heavy  a  weight  of 
words  and  matter.  When  examined,  this 
theory  or  paradox  of  Poe's  shrinks  into  the 
commonplace  observations  that  Poe  preferred 
lyric  poetry  and  that  lyrics  are  essentially 
brief.  In  considering  Poe's  theory  and 
practice,  we  must  not  forget  that  both  were, 
in  part,  the  result  of  reaction.  American 


THE    POETRY    OF 

literature  then  intended  to  be  extremely 
moral,  and  respectable,  and  didactic,  and 
much  of  it  was  excessively  uninspired. 
Poetry  was  expected,  as  she  so  often  is 
expected,  to  teach  morality  as  her  main  duty. 
We  have  always  plenty  of  critics  who  cry 
out  that  poetry  should  be  "  palpitating  with 
actuality,"  should  struggle  with  "the  living 
facts  of  the  hour,"  should  dignify  industrial 
ism,  and  indite  paeans,  perhaps,  to  sewing- 
machines  and  patent  electric  lights.  Poe's 
nature  was  essentially  rebellious,  scornful, 
and  aristocratic.  If  democratic  ecstasies  are 
a  tissue  of  historical  errors  and  self-compla 
cent  content  with  the  commonplace,  no  one 
saw  that  more  clearly  than  Poe.  Thus  he 
was  the  more  encouraged  by  his  rebellious 
instinct  to  take  up  what  was  then  a  singular 
and  heterodox  critical  position.  He  has 
lately  been  called  immoral  in  America  for 
writing  these  words :  "  Beyond  the  limits  of 
beauty  the  province  of  poetry  does  not 
extend.  Its  sole  arbiter  is  taste.  With  the 
intellect  or  the  conscience  it  has  only  collat 
eral  relations.  It  has  no  dependence,  unless 
incidentally,  upon  either  duty  or  truth." 

To  any  one  who  believes  that  the  best,  the 
immortal  poetry,  is  nobly  busied  with  great 
actions  and  great  passions,  Poe's  theory 
seems  fatally  narrow.  Without  the  concep- 


EDGAR    ALLAN    POE 

tions  of  duty  and  truth  we  can  have  no 
"  Antigone  "  and  no  "  Prometheus."  These 
great  and  paramount  ideas  have  always  been 
the  inspirers  of  honourable  actions,  and  by 
following  them  men  and  women  are  led  into 
the  dramatic  situations  which  are  the  mate 
rials  of  Shakespeare,  ^Eschylus,  and  Homer. 
There  is  an  immortal  strength  in  the  stories 
of  great  actions;  but  Poe  in  theory  and 
practice  disdains  all  action  and  rejects  this 
root  of  immortality.  He  deliberately  dis 
cards  sanity,  he  deliberately  chooses  fantasy 
for  his  portion.  Now,  while  it  is  not  the 
business  of  poetry  to  go  about  distributing 
tracts,  she  can  never  neglect  actions  and 
situations  which,  under  her  spell,  become 
unconscious  lessons  of  morality.  But,  as 
we  have  said,  Poe's  natural  bent,  and  his 
reaction  against  the  cheap  didactic  criticism 
of  his  country  and  his  time,  made  him 
neglect  all  actions  and  most  passions,  both 
in  his  practice  and  his  theory.  When  he 
spoke  of  Keats  as  the  most  flawless  of 
English  poets,  and  of  Mr.  Tennyson  as 
"the  noblest  poet  that  ever  lived,"  he  was 
attracted  by  that  in  them  which  is  most 
magical,  most  intangible,  and  most  undefin- 
able  —  the  inimitable  and  inexpressible  charm 
of  their  music,  by  the  delicious  languor  of 
the  "Ode  to  the  Nightingale"  and  of  the 


THE   POETRY   OF 

"  Lotus-Eaters."  These  poems  are,  indeed, 
examples  of  the  "rhythmical  creation  of 
beauty,"  which,  to  Poe's  mind,  was  the 
essence  and  function  of  poetry. 

As  to  the  nature  of  Poe's  secret  and  the 
technique  by  which  he  produced  his  melodies, 
much  may  be  attributed  to  the  singular 
musical  appropriateness  of  his  words  and 
epithets,  much  to  his  elaborate  care  for  the 
details  of  his  art.  George  Sand,  in  "Un 
Hiver  a  Majorque,"  describes  a  rainy  night 
which  Chopin  passed  in  the  half-ruinous 
monastery  where  they  lived.  She  tells  us 
how  the  melodies  of  the  wind  and  rain 
seemed  to  be  magically  transmuted  into  his 
music,  so  that,  without  any  puerile  attempt 
at  direct  imitation  of  sounds,  his  composi 
tions  were  alive  with  the  air  of  the  tempest. 
"Son  genie  etait  plein  des  mysterieuses 
harmonies  de  la  nature  traduites  par  des 
equivalents  sublimes  dans  sa  pensee  musi- 
cale,  et  non  par  une  repetition  servile  des  sons 
exterieurs."  In  Poe's  genius,  too,  there  was 
a  kind  of  pre-established  harmony  between 
musical  words  and  melancholy  thoughts. 
As  Mr.  Saintsbury  points  out  to  me,  though 
"  his  language  not  unf requently  passes  from 
vagueness  into  mere  unmeaningness  in  the 
literal  and  grammatical  sense  of  it,  yet  it 
never  fails  to  convey  the  proper  suggestion 


EDGAR   ALLAN    POE 

in  sound  if  not  in  sense.  Take  the  lines  in 
'Ulalume:'  — 

'  It  was  night  in  the  lonesome  October 
Of  my  most  immemorial  year? 

Here  it  would  puzzle  the  most  adroit  student 
of  words  to  attach  a  distinct  usual  sense, 
authenticated  by  lexicons,  to  'immemorial.' 
And  yet  no  one  with  an  ear  can  fail  to  see 
that  it  is  emphatically  the  right  word,  and 
supplies  the  necessary  note  of  suggestion." 
As  to  Poe's  management  of  his  metres,  one 
cannot  do  better  than  quote  Mr.  Saintsbury's 
criticism  again.  "The  same  indefinite  but 
intensely  poetic  effect  is  produced  still  more 
obviously  by  Poe's  management  of  his 
metres.  Every  one  who  is  acquainted  with 
his  critical  work  knows  the  care  (a  care  that 
brought  on  him  the  ridicule  of  sciolists  and 
poetasters)  which  he  bestowed  on  metrical 
subjects.  'The  Raven,'  'Ulalume,'  'The 
Haunted  Palace,'  •  Annabel  Lee,' '  For  Annie,' 
are,  each  in  its  own  way,  metrical  marvels, 
and  it  is  not  till  long  after  we  have  enjoyed 
and  admired  the  beauty  of  each  as  a  sym 
phony  that  we  discern  the  exquisite  selection 
and  skilful  juxtaposition  of  the  parts  and 
constituent  elements  of  each.  Every  one  of 
these  remains  unapproached  and  uncopied 


THE    POETRY    OF 

as  a  concerted  piece.  In  '  The  Haiinted 
Palace,'  the  metre,  stately  at  the  beginning, 
slackens  and  dies  towards  the  close.  In 
'Annabel  Lee'  and  '  For  Annie,'  on  the  con 
trary,  there  is  a  steady  crescendo  from  first 
to  last,  while,  in  the  two  other  pieces  the 
metre  ebbs  and  flows  at  uncertain  but  skil 
fully  arranged  intervals.  Poe  stands  almost 
alone  in  this  arrangement  of  his  lyric  works 
as  a  whole.  With  most  poets  the  line  or 
the  stanza  is  the  unit,  and  the  length  of  the 
poem  is  determined  rather  by  the  sense  than 
by  the  sound.  But  with  Poe  the  music  as 
well  as  the  sense  (even  more  than  the  sense 
perhaps)  is  arranged  and  projected  as  a 
whole,  nor  would  it  be  possible  to  curtail  or 
omit  a  stanza  without  injuring  the  metrical 
as  well  as  the  intelligible  effect." 

To  a  critic  who  himself  feels  that  the 
incommunicable  and  inexpressible  charm  of 
melodious  words  is  of  the  essence  of  song, 
Poe's  practice  is  a  perpetual  warning.  It  is 
to  verse  like  Poe's,  so  deficient  as  it  is  in  all 
merit  but  lyric  music  and  vague  emotion,  so 
devoid  of  human  passion  —  a  faint  rhyth 
mical  echo  among  stars  and  graves  of  man's 
laborious  life  —  that  we  are  reduced  if  we 
hold  the  theory  of  Poe.  A  critic  of  his  own 
native  land,  Mr.  Henry  James,  has  spoken 
of  his  "valueless  verse,"  and  valueless  his 


EDGAR    ALLAN    POE 

verse  must  always  appear  if  we  ask  from  it 
more  than  it  can  give.  It  has  nothing  to 
give  but  music,  and  people  who  want  more 
must  go  to  others  that  sell  a  different  ware. 
We  shall  never  appreciate  Poe  if  we  keep 
comparing  him  to  men  of  stronger  and  more 
human  natures.  We  must  take  him  as  one 
of  the  voices,  almost  the  "shadow  of  a 
voice,"  that  sound  in  the  temple  of  song, 
and  fill  a  little  hour  with  music.  He  is  not, 
like  Homer,  or  Scott,  or  Shakespeare,  or 
Moliere,  a  poet  that  men  can  live  with 
always,  by  the  sea,  in  the  hills,  in  the  mar 
ket-place.  He  is  the  singer  of  rare  hours  of 
languor,  when  the  soul  is  vacant  of  the  pride 
of  life,  and  inclined  to  listen,  as  it  were,  to 
the  echo  of  a  lyre  from  behind  the  hills  of 
death.  He  is  like  a  Moschus  or  Bion  who 
has  crossed  the  ferry  and  sings  to  Pluteus  a 
song  that  faintly  reaches  the  ears  of  mortals. 


OVK 


"  Not  unrewarded  "  indeed  is  the  singing, 
for  the  verse  of  Poe  has  been  prized  by  men 
with  a  far  wider  range  and  healthier  powers 
than  his  own. 

Poe  said  that  with   him  "poetry  was  a 
passion."     Yet  he  spoke  of  his  own  verses, 


THE    POETRY    OF 

in  a  moment  of  real  modesty  and  insight,  as 
trifles  "not  of  much  value  to  the  public,  or 
very  creditable  to  myself."  They  were,  for 
the  greater  part,  composed  in  the  most  mis 
erable  circumstances,  when  poverty,  when 
neglect,  when  the  cruel  indignation  of  a  born 
man  of  letters,  in  a  country  where  letters 
had  not  yet  won  their  place,  were  torturing 
the  poet.  He  was  compelled  to  be  a 
bookseller's  hack.  The  hack's  is  indeed  "  a 
damnable  life,"  as  Goldsmith  said,  and  was 
doubly  or  trebly  damnable  when  "  The  Bells  " 
or  "Annabel  Lee"  were  sent  the  round  of 
the  newspaper  offices,  to  be  disposed  of  for 
the  price  of  a  dinner  and  a  pair  of  boots. 
Poe's  time  was  spent  in  writing  elaborate 
masterpieces  for  a  pittance,  and  in  reviewing 
and  crushing,  for  the  sake  of  bread,  the 
productions  of  a  crowd  of  mediocrities. 
Then  came  violent  and  venomous  quarrels, 
which,  with  enforced  hackwork,  devoured  the 
energy  of  the  poet.  It  is  no  wonder  that  he 
produced  little;  but  even  had  he  enjoyed 
happier  fortunes,  his  range  is  so  narrow  that 
we  could  not  have  looked  for  many  volumes 
from  him.  He  declared  that  he  could  not 
and  would  not  excite  his  muse,  "  with  an  eye 
to  the  paltry  compensations  or  the  more 
paltry  commendations  of  mankind."  Thus 
it  may,  at  least,  be  said  of  him,  that  he 


EDGAR   ALLAN    POE 

was  himself  in  his  poetry,  though,  in  writing 
prose,  he  often  deserted  his  true  inspiration. 
In  his  earlier  verses  he  is  very  plainly  the 
pupil  of  Shelley,  as  any  one  may  see  who 
has  the  courage  to  read  through  "Tamer 
lane"  and  "Al  Aaraaf."  His  reputation 
does  not  rest  on  these  poems,  which  are 
longer  than  his  own  canon  admitted,  but  on 
pieces  of  verbal  music  like  "The  Haunted 
Palace,"  "  The  Sleeper,"  "  To  One  in  Para 
dise,"  "  Israfel,"  and  the  lines  "  To  Helen." 
.  .  .  .  Though  this  beautiful  piece  of 
verse  did  not  appear  in  the  very  earliest 
editions  of  Poe's  poems,  he  always  declared 
that  it  was  written  in  boyhood  for  the  woman 
whose  death  caused  him,  in  Beddoes'  phrase, 
"  with  half  his  heart  to  inhabit  other  worlds." 
Poe  was  well  aware  that  his  "  Raven,"  despite 
its  immense  popularity,  was  not  among  his 
best  works.  Indeed,  it  is  almost  too  clever 
to  be  poetical,  and  has  in  it  a  kind  of  echo 
of  Mrs.  Browning,  whose  verse,  floating  in 
the  poet's  mind  probably  suggested  the 
composition.  "  To  Helen,"  "  The  Haunted 
Palace,"  and  "The  Sleeper,"  are  perhaps 
the  most  coherent  and  powerful  as  well  as 
the  most  melodious  of  Poe's  verses.  As  his 
life  sank  in  poverty,  bereavement,  misfor 
tune,  and  misery,  his  verse  more  and  more 
approached  the  vagueness  of  music,  appealing 


THE    POETRY    OF 

often  to  mere  sensation  rather  than  to  any 
emotion  which  can  be  stated  in  words.  "  The 
Bells"  was  written  in  the  intervals  of  an 
unnatural  lethargy;  "Ulalume"  scarcely 
pretends  to  remain  within  the  limits  of  the 
poetical  art,  and  attracts  or  repels  by  mere 
sounds  as  vacant  as  possible  of  meaning. 
Mr.  Stedman  says,  truly  and  eloquently,  that 
"Ulalume"  "seems  an  improvisation,  such 
as  a  violinist  might  play  upon  the  instrument 
which  had  become  his  one  thing  of  worth 
after  the  death  of  a  companion  who  had  left 
him  alone  with  his  own  soul."  The  odd 
definition  of  the  highest  poetry  as  "sense 
swooning  into  nonsense"  seems  made  for 
such  verse  as  "  Ulalume."  People  are  so 
constituted  that,  if  a  critic  confesses  his 
pleasure  in  such  a  thing  as  "  Ulalume,"  he  is 
supposed  to  admit  his  inability  to  admire 
any  other  poetry.  Thus  it  may  require 
some  moral  courage  to  assert  one's  belief 
that  even  "Ulalume"  has  an  excuse  for  its 
existence.  It  is  curious  and  worth  observing 
that  this  sort  of  verse  is  so  rare.  It  cannot 
be  easy  to  make,  or  the  herd  of  imitators 
who  approach  art  by  its  weak  points  would 
have  produced  quantities  of  this  enigmatic 
poetry.  Yet,  with  the  exception  of  Poe's 
later  verse,  of  Mr.  Morris's  "Blue  Closet," 
and  perhaps  of  some  pieces  by  Gerard  de 


EDGAR   ALLAN    POE 

Nerval,  it  is  difficult  to  name  any  successful 
lines  on  the  further  side  of  the  border 
between  verse  and  music.  In  this  region, 
this  "ultimate  dim  Thule,"  Poe  seems  to 
reign  almost  alone.  The  fact  is  that  the  art 
of  hints,  of  fantasies,  of  unfinished  sugges 
tions  is  not  an  easy  one,  as  many  critics,  both 
of  poetry  and  painting,  seem  to  suppose.  It 
is  not  enough  to  be  obscure,  or  to  introduce 
forms  unexplained  and  undefined.  A  certain 
very  rare  sort  of  genius  is  needed  to  make 
productions  live  which  hold  themselves  thus 
independent  of  nature  and  of  the  rules  of 
art.  We  cannot  define  the  nature  of  the 
witchery  by  which  the  most  difficult  task  of 
romantic  art  was  achieved.  Poe  did  succeed, 
as  is  confessed  by  the  wide  acceptance  of 
poems  that  cannot  be  defended  if  any  one 
chooses  to  attack  them.  They  teach  noth 
ing,  they  mean  little;  their  melody  may  be 
triumphantly  explained  as  the  result  of  a 
metrical  trick.  Eut,  ne  faict  ce  tour  qui  veut. 
The  trick  was  one  that  only  Poe  could  play. 
Like  Hawthorne  in  prose,  Poe  possessed  in 
poetry  a  style  as  strange  as  it  was  individual, 
a  style  trebly  remarkable  because  it  was 
the  property  of  a  hack-writer.  When  all  is 
said,  Poe  remains  a  master  of  fantastic  and 
melancholy  sound.  Some  foolish  old  legend 
tells  of  a  musician  who  surpassed  all  his 

xxxi 


THE    POETRY   OF    POE 

rivals.  His  strains  were  unearthly  sad,  and 
ravished  the  ears  of  those  who  listened  with 
a  strange  melancholy.  Yet  his  viol  had  but 
a  single  string,  and  the  framework  was  fash 
ioned  out  of  a  dead  woman's  breast-bone. 
Poe's  verse  —  the  parallel  is  much  in  his  own 
taste  —  resembles  that  player's  minstrelsy. 
It  is  morbidly  sweet  and  mournful,  and  all 
touched  on  that  single  string,  which  thrills 
to  a  dead  and  immortal  affection. 

ANDREW  LANG. 


POEMS 


PREFACE    TO    THE    COLLECTION    OF    1845 

These  trifles  are  collected  and  republished  chiefly 
with  a  view  to  their  redemption  from  the  many 
improvements  to  which  they  have  been  subjected  while 
going  "the  rounds  of  the  press."  I  am  naturally 
anxious  that  what  I  have  written  should  circulate  as  i 
wrote  it,  it  it  circulate  at  all.  In  defence  of  my  own 
taste,  nevertheless,  it  is  incumbent  on  me  to  say  that  1 
think  nothing  in  this  volume  of  much  value  to  the 
public,  or  very  creditable  to  myself.  Events  not  to  be 
controlled  have  prevented  me  from  making,  at  any 
time,  any  serious  effort  in  what,  under  happier  circum 
stances,  would  have  been  the  field  of  my  choice.  With 
me  poetry  has  been  not  a  purpose,  but  a  passion  ;  and 
the  passions  should  be  held  in  reverence  ;  they  must 
not  —  they  cannot  at  will  be  excited  with  an  eye  to  the 
paltry  compensations,  or  the  more  paltry  commenda 
tions,  of  mankind. 

E.  A.   P. 


TO    THE    NOBLEST   OF    HER    SEX 

TO   THE   AUTHOR    OF 

"THE    DRAMA   OF    EXILE" 

TO    MISS    ELIZABETH    BARRETT    BARRETT 

OF    ENGLAND 

I    DEDICATE   THIS   VOLUME 

WITH    THE    MOST    ENTHUSIASTIC    ADMIRATION 
AND    WITH   THE    MOST    SINCERE    ESTEEM. 

E.  A.  P. 

1845 


THE   RAVEN 

ONCE  upon  a  midnight  dreary,  while  I 
pondered,  weak  and  weary, 
Over  many  a  quaint  and  curious  volume  of 

forgotten  lore, — 
While  I  nodded,  nearly  napping,  suddenly 

there  came  a  tapping, 
As  of  some  one  gently  rapping, —  rapping  at 

my  chamber  door. 

"'Tis  some  visitor,"  I  mattered,  "tapping  at 
my  chamber  door, — 

Only  this,  and  nothing  more." 

Ah,  distinctly  I  remember  it  was  in  the  bleak 

December, 
And  each  separate  dying  ember  wrought  its 

ghost  upon  the  floor. 
Eagerly  I  wished  the  morrow;  —  vainly  I  had 

sought  to  borrow 
From  my  books  surcease  of  sorrow, —  sorrow 

for  the  lost  Lenore, — 
For  the  rare  and  radiant  maiden  whom  the 

angels  name  Lenore, — 

Nameless  here  for  evermore. 


And  the  silken  sad  uncertain  rustling  of  each 
purple  curtain 

Thrilled  me  —  filled  me  —  with  fantastic  ter 
rors  never  felt  before; 

So  that  now,  to  still  the  beating  of  my  heart, 
I  stood  repeating 

"'Tis  some  visitor  entreating  entrance  at  my 
chamber  door, — 

Some  late  visitor  entreating  entrance  at  my 
chamber  door. 

This  it  is,  and  nothing  more." 

Presently  my  soul  grew  stronger:  hesitating 
then  no  longer, 

"  Sir,"  said  I,  "  or  Madam,  truly  your  forgive 
ness  I  implore : 

But  the  fact  is  I  was  napping,  and  so  gently 
you  came  rapping, 

And  so  faintly  you  came  tapping,  tapping  at 
my  chamber  door, 

That  I  scarce  was  sure  I  heard  you."  Here 
I  opened  wide  the  door. 

Darkness  there,  and  nothing  more. 

Deep  into  that  darkness  peering,  long  I  stood 
there,  wondering,  fearing, 

Doubting,  dreaming  dreams  no  mortal  ever 
dared  to  dream  before. 

But  the  silence  was  unbroken,  and  the  still 
ness  gave  no  token, 

And  the  only  word  there  spoken  was  the 
whispered  word,  "  Lenore  !  " 


This  I  whispered,  and  an  echo  murmured 
back  the  word,  "Lenore!" 

Merely  this,  and  nothing  more. 

Back  into  the  chamber  turning,  all  my  soul 

within  me  burning, 
Soon  again   I   heard  a  tapping,  something 

louder  than  before. 
"Surely,"  said  I,  "surely  that  is  something 

at  my  window-lattice: 
Let  me  see,  then,  what  thereat  is,  and  this 

mystery  explore, — 
Let   my  heart  .be  still  a  moment,  and   this 

mystery  explore : 

'Tis  the  wind,  and  nothing  more." 

Open  here  I  flung  the  shutter,  when,  with 

many  a  flirt  and  flutter, 
In    there   stepped    a  stately   Raven   of   the 

saintly  days  of  yore. 
Nor  the  least  obeisance   made  he, —  not  a 

minute  stopped  or  stayed  he, 
But,  with  mien  of  lord  or  lady,  perched  above 

my  chamber  door, — 
Perched  upon  a  bust  of  Pallas  just  above  my 

chamber  door, — 

Perched,  and  sat,  and  nothing  more. 

Then  this  ebon  bird  beguiling  my  sad  fancy 
into  smiling, 

By  the  grave  and  stern  decorum  of  the  coun 
tenance  it  wore, 


"Though   thy  crest  be  shorn  and  shaven, 
thou,"  T  said,  "  art  sure  no  craven, 

Ghastly,  grim,  and  ancient  Raven,  wandering 
from  the  Nightly  shore. 

Tell  me  what   thy  lordly  name  is  on   the 
Night's  Plutonian  shore ! " 

Quoth  the  Raven,  "Nevermore." 

Much  T  marvelled  this  ungainly  fowl  to  hear 

discourse  so  plainly, 
Though   its    answer   little    meaning  —  little 

relevancy  bore ; 
For  we  cannot  help  agreeing  that  no  living 

human  being 
Ever  yet  was  blessed  with  seeing  bird  above 

his  chamber  door, — 
Bird  or  beast  upon  the  sculptured  bust  above 

his  chamber  door, 

With  such  name  as  "  Nevermore." 

But  the  Raven,  sitting  lonely  on  that  placid 

bust,  spoke  only 
That  one  word,  as  if  his  soul  in  that   one 

word  he  did  outpour. 
Nothing    further    then    he   uttered;     not    a 

feather  then  he  fluttered, — 
Till  I  scarcely  more  than  muttered,  "  Other 

friends  have  flown  before ! 
On  the  morrow  he  will  leave  me,  as  my  hopes 

have  flown  before  !  " 

Then  the  bird  said  "  Nevermore." 


Startled  at  the  stillness  broken  by  reply  so 

aptly  spoken, 
"Doubtless,"  said  I,  "what  it  utters  is  its 

only  stock  and  store, 
Caught  from  some  unhappy  master  whom 

unmerciful  Disaster 
Followed  fast  and  followed  faster  till  his 

songs  one  burden  bore, — 
Till  the  dirges  of  his  Hope  that  melancholy 

burden  bore 

Of  '  Never, — nevermore ! ' " 

But  the  Raven  still  beguiling  all  my  sad  soul 
into  smiling, 

Straight  I  wheeled  a  cushioned  seat  in  front 
of  bird  and  bust  and  door; 

Then,  upon  the  velvet  sinking,  I  betook 
myself  to  linking 

Fancy  unto  fancy,  thinking  what  this  omi 
nous  bird  of  yore  — 

What  this  grim,  ungainly,  ghastly,  gaunt, 
and  ominous  bird  of  yore 

Meant  in  croaking  "  Nevermore." 

This  I  sat  engaged  in  guessing,  but  no  sylla 
ble  expressing 

To  the  fowl  whose  fiery  eyes  now  burned 
into  my  bosom's  core : 

This  and  more  I  sat  divining,  with  my  head 
at  ease  reclining 

On  the  cushion's  velvet  lining  that  the  lamp 
light  gloated  o'er, 


But  whose  velvet  violet  lining,  with  the 
lamplight  gloating  o'er, 

She  shall  press,  ah,  nevermore ! 

Then,  methought,  the  air  grew  denser,  per 
fumed  from  an  unseen  censer 

Swung  by  Seraphim  whose  footfalls  tinkled 
on  the  tufted  floor. 

"  Wretch  !  "  I  cried,  "  thy  God  hath  lent  thee 
—  by  these  angels  he  hath  sent  thee 

Respite  —  respite  and  nepenthe  from  thy 
memories  of  Lenore ! 

Quaff,  oh  quaff  this  kind  nepenthe,  and 
forget  the  lost  Lenore ! " 

Quoth  the  Raven,  "Nevermore." 

"Prophet!"    cried     I,    "thing    of     evil!  — 

prophet  still,  if  bird  or  devil !  — 
Whether  Tempter  sent,  or  whether  tempest 

tossed  thee  here  ashore, 
Desolate  yet  all  undaunted,  on  this  desert 

land  enchanted  — 
On  this  Home  by  horror  haunted  —  tell  me 

truly,  I  implore  — 
Is  there  —  is  there  balm  in  Gilead  ?     Tell 

me!  —  tell  me,  I  implore!" 

Quoth  the  Raven,  "Nevermore." 

"Prophet!"  cried  I,  "thing  of  evil!  — 
prophet  still,  if  bird  or  devil!  — 

By  that  Heaven  that  bends  above  us  —  by 
that  God  we  both  adore  !  — 


Tell  this  soul  with  sorrow  laden,  if,  within 

the  distant  Aidenn, 
It  shall  clasp  a  sainted  maiden  whom   the 

angels  name  Lenore, — 
Clasp  a  rare  and  radiant  maiden  whom  the 

angels  name  Lenore." 

Quoth  the  Raven,  "  Nevermore." 

"  Be  that  word  our  sign  of  parting,  bird  or 

fiend  I  "  I  shrieked,  upstarting. 
"Get  thee  back  into  the  tempest  and  the 

Night's  Plutonian  shore! 
Leave  no  black  plume  as  a  token  of  that  lie 

thy  soul  hath  spoken  ! 
Leave  my  loneliness   unbroken! — quit   the 

bust  above  my  door! 
Take  thy  beak  from  out  my  heart,  and  take 

thy  form  from  off  my  door ! " 

Quoth  the  Raven,  "Nevermore." 

And  the  Raven,  never  flitting,  still  is  sitting, 

still  is  sitting 
On  the  pallid  bust  of  Pallas,  just  above  my 

chamber  door; 
And   his   eyes   have  all   the  seeming  of   a 

demon's  that  is  dreaming, 
And  the  lamplight  o'er  him  streaming  throws 

his  shadow  on  the  floor; 
And  my  soul  from  out  that  shadow  that  lies 

floating  on  the  floor 

Shall  be  lifted  —  nevermore! 


THE   BELLS 


H 


EAR  the  sledges  with  the  bells, — 

Silver  bells! 

What  a  world  of  merriment  their  melody  foretells ! 
How  they  tinkle,  tinkle,  tinkle, 

In  the  icy  air  of  night  1 
While  the  stars  that  oversprinkle 
All  the  heavens,  seem  to  twinkle 

With  a  crystalline  delight ; 
Keeping  time,  time,  time, 
In  a  sort  of  Runic  rhyme, 
To  the  tintinabulation  that  so  musically  wells 
From  the  bells,  bells,  bells,  bells, 

Bells,  bells,  bells  — 
From  the  jingling  and  the  tinkling  of  the  bells. 

II 

Hear  the  mellow  wedding  bells, — 

Golden  bells ! 

What  a  world  of  happiness  their  harmony  foretells  I 
Through  the  balmy  air  of  night 
How  they  ring  out  their  delight ! 
From  the  molten  golden  notes, 

And  all  in  tune, 
What  a  liquid  ditty  floats 

To  the  turtle-dove  that  listens,  while  she  gloats 
On  the  moon ! 


12 


Oh,  from  out  the  sounding  cells, 
What  a  gush  of  euphony  voluminously  wells  I 
How  it  swells ! 
How  it  dwells 

On  the  Future !     How  it  tells 
Of  the  rapture  that  impels 
To  the  swinging  and  the  ringing 
Of  the  bells,  bells,  bells, 
Of  the  bells,  bells,  bells,  bells, 

Bells,  bells,  bells,— 
To  the  rhyming  and  the  chiming  of  the  bells ! 


Ill 


Hear  the  loud  alarum  bells, — 

Brazen  bells  1 

What  a  tale  of  terror,  now,  their  turbulency  tells  1 
In  the  startled  ear  of  night 
How  they  scream  out  their  affright ! 
Too  much  horrified  to  speak, 
They  can  only  shriek,  shriek,  shriek, 

Out  of  tune, 

In  a  clamorous  appealing  to  the  mercy  of  the  fire, 
In  a  mad  expostulation  with  the  deaf  and  frantic  fire, 
Leaping  higher,  higher,  higher, 
With  a  desperate  desire, 
And  a  resolute  endeavor 
Now  —  now  to  sit,  or  never, 
By  the  side  of  the  pale-faced  moon. 
Oh,  the  bells,  bells,  bells ! 
What  a  tale  their  terror  tells 
Of  Despair ! 


How  they  clang,  and  clash,  and  roar ! 
What  a  horror  they  outpour 
On  the  bosom  of  the  palpitating  air ! 
Yet  the  ear  it  fully  knows, 
By  the  twanging, 
And  the  clanging, 
How  the  danger  ebbs  and  flows ; 
Yet  the  ear  distinctly  tells, 
In  the  jangling, 
And  the  wrangling, 
How  the  danger  sinks  and  swells, 
By  the  sinking  or  the  swelling  in  the  anger  of  the  bells, 

Of  the  bells,— 
Of  the  bells,  bells,  bells,  bells, 

Bells,  bells,  bells,— 
In  the  clamor  and  the  clangor  of  the  bells ! 


IV 


Hear  the  tolling  of  the  bells, — 

Iron  bells ! 

What  a  world  of  solemn  thought  their  monody  compels  ! 
In  the  silence  of  the  night, 
How  we  shiver  with  affright 
At  the  melancholy  menace  of  their  tone ! 
For  every  sound  that  floats 
From  the  rust  within  their  throats 

Is  a  groan. 

And  the  people  —  ah,  the  people  — 
They  that  dwell  up  in  the  steeple, 
All  alone, 


1 4 


And  who  tolling,  tolling,  tolling, 

In  that  muffled  monotone, 
Feel  a  glory  in  so  rolling 

On  the  human  heart  a  stone : 
They  are  neither  man  nor  woman, — 
They  are  neither  brute  nor  human, — 

They  are  Ghouls ; 
And  their  king  it  is  who  tolls, — 
And  he  rolls,  rolls,  rolls, 
Rolls  a  paean  from  the  bells! 
And  his  merry  bosom  swells 
With  the  paean  of  the  bells, 
And  he  dances,  and  he  yells ; 
Keeping  time,  time,  time, 
In  a  sort  of  Runic  rhyme, 
To  the  paean  of  the  bells,— 

Of  the  bells : 
Keeping  time,  time,  time, 
In  a  sort  of  Runic  rhyme, 

To  the  throbbing  of  the  bells,— 
Of  the  bells,  bells,  bells,— 

To  the  sobbing  of  the  bells ; 
Keeping  time,  time,  time, 

As  he  knells,  knells,  knells, 
In  a  happy  Runic  rhyme, 
To  the  rolling  of  the  bells, — 
Of  the  bells,  bells,  bells,— 
To  the  tolling  of  the  bells, 
Of  the  bells,  bells,  bells,  bells- 
Bells,  bells,  bells,— 
To  the  moaning  and  the  groaning  of  the  bells. 


ULALUME 

THE  skies  they  were  ashen  and  sober; 
The  leaves  they  were  crisped  and  sere, — 
The  leaves  they  were  withering  and  sere, — 
It  was  night  in  the  lonesome  October 

Of  my  most  immemorial  year; 
It  was  hard  by  the  dim  lake  of  Auber, 

In  the  misty  mid-region  of  Weir, — 
It  was  down  by  the  dank  tarn  of  Auber, 
In  the  ghoul-haunted  woodland  of  Weir. 

Here  once,  through  an  alley  Titanic, 
Of  cypress,  I  roamed  with  my  soul, — 
Of  cypress,  with  Psyche,  my  Soul. 

These  were  days  when  my  heart  was  volcanic 
As  the  scoriae  rivers  that  roll  — 
As  the  lavas  that  restlessly  roll  — 

Their  sulphurous  currents  down  Yaanek 
In  the  ultimate  climes  of  the  pole  — 

That  groan  as  they  roll  down  Mount  Yaanek, 
In  the  realms  of  the  boreal  pole. 

Our  talk  had  been  serious  and  sober, 

But  our  thoughts  they  were  palsied  and  sere, 
Our  memories  were  treacherous  and  sere, — 

For  we  knew  not  the  month  was  October, 
And  we  marked  not  the  night  of  the  year, — 
(Ah,  night  of  all  nights  in  the  year ! ) 


We  noted  not  the  dim  lake  of  Auber  — 
(Though  once  we  had  journeyed  down  here)- 

Remembered  not  the  dank  tarn  of  Auber, 
Nor  the  ghoul-haunted  woodland  of  Weir. 

And  now,  as  the  night  was  senescent, 
And  the  star-dials  pointed  to  morn, — 
As  the  star-dials  hinted  of  morn, — 

At  the  end  of  our  path  a  liquescent 
And  nebulous  lustre  was  born, 

Out  of  which  a  miraculous  crescent 
Arose  with  a  duplicate  horn, — 

Astarte's  bediamonded  crescent, 
Distinct  with  its  duplicate  horn. 

And  I  said,  "  She  is  warmer  than  Dian : 

She  rolls  through  an  ether  of  sighs, — 

She  revels  in  a  region  of  sighs: 
She  has  seen  that  the  tears  are  not  dry  on 

These  cheeks,  where  the  worm  never  dies, 
And  has  come  past  the  stars  of  the  Lion 

To  point  us  the  path  to  the  skies, — 

To  the  Lethean  peace  of  the  skies, — 
Come  up,  in  despite  of  the  Lion, 

To  shine  on  us  with  her  bright  eyes, 
Come  up  through  the  lair  of  the  Lion, 

With  love  in  her  luminous  eyes." 

But  Pysche,  uplifting  her  ringer, 
Said,  "  Sadly  this  star  I  mistrust, — 
Her  pallor  I  strangely  mistrust : 


Oh,  hasten!  oh,  let  us  not  linger! 

Oh,  fly  I  —  let  us  fly!  —  for  we  must." 
In  terror  she  spoke,  letting  sink  her 

Wings  until  they  trailed  in  the  dust, — 
In  agony  sobbed,  letting  sink  her 

Plumes  till  they  trailed  in  the  dust, — 

Till  they  sorrowfully  trailed  in  the  dust. 


I  replied,  "  This  is  nothing  but  dreaming : 

Let  us  on  by  this  tremulous  light ! 

Let  us  bathe  in  this  crystalline  light  I 
Its  Sybilic  splendor  is  beaming 

With  Hope  and  in  Beauty  to-night : 

See!  it  flickers  up  the  sky  through  the  night! 
Ah,  we  safely  may  trust  to  its  gleaming, 

And  be  sure  it  will  lead  us  aright. 
We  safely  may  trust  to  a  gleaming 

That  cannot  but  guide  us  aright, 

Since  it  flickers  up  to  Heaven  through  the  night." 


Thus  I  pacified  Psyche,  and  kissed  her, 
And  tempted  her  out  of  her  gloom, — 
And  conquered  her  scruples  and  gloom ; 

And  we  passed  to  the  end  of  the  vista, 

But  were  stopped  by  the  door  of  a  tomb, — 
By  the  door  of  a  legended  tomb  : 

And  I  said,  "  What  is  written,  sweet  sister, 
On  the  door  of  this  legended  tomb  ? " 

She  replied,  "  Ulalume  !  —  Ulalume  !  — 

Tis  the  vault  of  thy  lost  Ulalume !  " 


Then  my  heart  it  grew  ashen  and  sober 

As  the  leaves  that  were  crisped  and  sere, — 
As  the  leaves  that  were  withering  and  sere: 

And  I  cried,  "  It  was  surely  October, — 
On  this  very  night  of  last  year, 
That  I  journeyed  —  I  journeyed  down  here, — 
That  I  brought  a  dread  burden  down  here : 
On  this  night,  of  all  nights  in  the  year, 
Ah,  what  demon  has  tempted  me  here? 

Well  I  know,  now,  this  dim  lake  of  Auber, — 
This  misty  mid-region  of  Weir, — 

Well  I  know,  now,  this  dank  tarn  of  Auber, — 
This  ghoul-haunted  woodland  of  Weir." 


BRIDAL  BALLAD 

THE  ring  is  on  my  hand, 
And  the  wreath  is  on  my  brow ; 
Satins  and  jewels  grand 
Are  all  at  my  command, 
And  I  am  happy  now. 

And  my  lord  he  loves  me  well ; 

But,  when  first  he  breathed  his  vow, 
I  felt  my  bosom  swell, — 
For  the  words  rang  as  a  knell, 
And  the  voice  seemed  his  who  fell 
In  the  battle  down  the  dell, 

And  who  is  happy  now. 

But  he  spoke  to  reassure  me, 

And  he  kissed  my  pallid  brow, 
While  a  reverie  came  o'er  me, 
And  to  the  churchyard  bore  me, 
And  I  sighed  to  him  before  me, 
Thinking  him  dead  D'Elormie, 
"  Oh,  I  am  happy  now !  " 

And  thus  the  words  were  spoken, 
And  this  the  plighted  vow, 

And,  though  my  faith  be  broken, 

And,  though  my  heart  be  broken, 

Behold  the  golden  token 
That  proves  me  happy  now ! 


20 


Would  to  God  I  could  awaken ! 

For  I  dream  I  know  not  how; 
And  my  soul  is  sorely  shaken 
Lest  an  evil  step  be  taken  — 
Lest  the  dead  who  is  forsaken 

May  not  be  happy  now. 


LENORE 


AH,    broken   is    the    golden    bowl!  —  the 
spirit  flown  forever !  — 
Let  the  bell  toll!  —  a  saintly  soul  floats  on 

the  Stygian  river ; 

And,  Guy  De  Vere,  hast  thou  no  tear?  — 
weep  now,  or  nevermore  ! 

See,  on  yon  drear  and  rigid  bier  low  lies  thy 

love,  Lenore ! 
Come,    let    the    burial    rite    be    read, —  the 

funeral  song  be  sung!  — 
An  anthem  for  the  queenliest  dead  that  ever 

died  so  young, — 
A  dirge  for  her  the  doubly  dead  in  that  she 

died  so  young. 

"  Wretches !  ye  loved  her  for  her  wealth  and 

hated  her  for  her  pride ! 
And   when    she    fell    in   feeble    health,    ye 

blessed  her  —  that  she  died! 
How  shall  the  ritual,  then,  be  read?  —  the 

requiem  how  be  sung 
By  you  —  by  yours,  the  evil  eye, —  by  yours, 

the  slanderous  tongue 
That  did  to  death  the  innocence  that  died, 

and  died  so  young?" 


Peccavimus  I     But  rave  not  thus,  and  let  a 

Sabbath  song 
Go  up  to  God  so  solemnly  tlie  dead  may 

feel  no  wrong ! 
The  sweet  Lenore  hath  "gone  before,"  with 

Hope,  that  flew  beside, 
Leaving  thee  wild  for  the  dear  child  that 

should  have  been  thy  bride!  — 
For  her,  the  fair  and  debonair,  that  now  so 

lowly  lies, 
The  life  upon  her  yellow  hair,  but  not  within 

her  eyes, — 
The   life  still    there,   upon    her    hair, —  the 

death  upon  her  eyes. 

"  Avaunt !     To-night  my  heart  is  light !     No 

dirge  will  I  upraise, 
But  waft  the  angel  on  her  flight  with  a  paean 

of  old  days ! 
Let  no  bell  toll!  —  lest  her  sweet  soul,  amid 

its  hallowed  mirth, 
Should  catch  the  note,  as  it  doth  float  up 

from  the  damned  Earth  ! 
To  friends    above,  from  fiends    below,   the 

indignant  ghost  is  riven, — 
From  Hell  unto  a  high  estate  far  up  within 

the  Heaven, — 
From  grief  and  groan  to  a  golden   throne, 

beside  the  King  of  Heaven." 


23 


TO   HELEN 

I  SAW  thee  once  —  once  only  —  years  ago: 
I  must  not  say  how  many  —  but  not  many. 
It  was  a  July  midnight:  and  from  out 
A  full-orbed  moon,  that,  like  thine  own  soul,  soaring, 
Sought  a  precipitate  pathway  up  through  heaven, 
There  fell  a  silvery  silken  veil  of  light, 
With  quietude,  and  sultriness,  and  slumber, 
Upon  the  upturned  faces  of  a  thousand 
Roses  that  grew  in  an  enchanted  garden, 
Where  no  wind  dared  to  stir,  unless  on  tiptoe, — 
Fell  on  the  upturned  faces  of  these  roses 
That  gave  out,  in  return  for  the  love-light, 
Their  odorous  souls  in  an  ecstatic  death, — 
Fell'  on  the  upturned  faces  of  these  roses 
That  smiled  and  died  in  this  parterre,  enchanted 
By  thee,  and  by  the  poetry  of  thy  presence. 

Clad  all  in  white,  upon  a  violet  bank 

I  saw  thee  half  reclining ;  while  the  moon 

Fell  on  the  upturned  faces  of  the  roses, 

And  on  thine  own,  upturned, —  alas,  in  sorrow! 

Was  it  not  Fate,  that,  on  this  July  midnight  — 

Was  it  not  Fate  (whose  name  is  also  Sorrow) 

That  bade  me  pause  before  that  garden-gate 

To  breathe  the  incense  of  those  slumbering  roses  ? 

No  footstep  stirred :  the  hated  world  all  slept, 

Save  only  thee  and  me.     (Oh,  Heaven!  —  oh,  God  I 


24 


How  my  heart  beats  in  coupling  those  two  words  ! ) 
Save  only  thee  and  me!     I  paused — I  looked  — 
And  in  an  instant  all  things  disappeared. 
(Ah,  bear  in  mind  this  garden  was  enchanted  1 ) 

The  pearly  lustre  of  the  moon  went  out : 

The  mossy  banks  and  the  meandering  paths  — 

The  happy  flowers  and  the  repining  trees  — 

Were  seen  no  more :  the  very  roses'  odors 

Died  in  the  arms  of  the  adoring  air. 

All  —  all  expired  save  thee  —  save  less  than  thou? 

Save  only  the  divine  light  in  thine  eyes  — 

Save  but  the  soul  in  thine  uplifted  eyes. 

I  saw  but  them  —  they  were  the  world  to  me: 

I  saw  but  them  —  saw  only  them  for  hours  — 

Saw  only  them  until  the  moon  went  down. 

What  wild  heart-histories  seemed  to  lie  enwritten 

Upon  those  crystalline,  celestial  spheres ! 

How  dark  a  woe !  yet  how  sublime  a  hope! 

How  silently  serene  a  sea  of  pride  ! 

How  daring  an  ambition!  yet  how  deep — 

How  fathomless  a  capacity  for  love! 

But  now,  at  length,  dear  Dian  sank  from  sight, 

Into  a  western  couch  of  thunder-cloud ; 

And  thou,  a  ghost,  amid  the  entombing  trees 

Didst  glide  away.     Only  thine  eyes  remained. 

They  would  not  go, —  they  never  yet  have  gone. 

Lighting  my  lonely  pathway  home  that  night, 
They  have  not  left  me  (as  my  hopes  have)  since. 
They  follow  me  —  they  lead  me  through  the  years  — 
They  are  my  ministers  —  yet  I  their  slave. 


Their  office  is  to  illumine  and  enkindle, 

My  duty  to  be  saved  by  their  bright  light, 

And  purified  in  their  electric  fire, 

And  sanctified  in  their  elysian  fire. 

They  fill  my  soul  with  beauty  (which  is  Hope), 

And  are  far  up  in  Heaven  —  the  stars  I  kneel  to 

In  the  sad,  silent  watches  of  my  night; 

While  even  in  the  meridian  glare  of  day 

I.  see  them  still  —  two  sweetly  scintillant 

Venuses,  unextinguished  by  the  sun ! 


ANNABEL   LEE 

IT  was  many  and  many  a  year  ago, 
In  a  kingdom  by  the  sea, 
That  a  maiden  there  lived  whom  you  may  know, 

By  the  name  of  ANNABEL  LEE; 
And  this  maiden  she  lived  with  no  other  thought 
Than  to  love  and  be  loved  by  me. 

/  was  a  child  and  she  was  a  child, 

In  this  kingdom  by  the  sea: 
But  we  loved  with  a  love  that  was  more  than  love, 

I  and  my  ANNABEL  LEE; 
With  a  love  that  the  winged  seraphs  of  heaven 

Coveted  her  and  me. 

And  this  was  the  reason  that,  long  ago, 

In  this  kingdom  by  the  sea, 
A  wind  blew  out  of  a  cloud,  chilling 

My  beautiful  ANNABEL  LEE; 
So  that  her  highborn  kinsman  came 

And  bore  her  away  from  me, 
To  shut  her  up  in  a  sepulchre 

In  this  kingdom  by  the  sea. 

The  angels,  not  half  so  happy  in  heaven, 

Went  envying  her  and  me, — 
Yes !  —  that  was  the  reason  (as  all  men  know, 

In  this  kingdom  by  the  sea) 


That  the  wind  came  out  of  the  cloud  by  night, 
Chilling  and  killing  my  ANNABEL  LEE. 

But  our  love  it  was  stronger  by  far  than  the  love 

Of  those  who  were  older  than  we, — 

Of  many  far  wiser  than  we ; 
And  neither  the  angels  in  heaven  above, 

Nor  the  demons  down  under  the  sea, 
Can  ever  dissever  my  soul  from  the  soul 

Of  the  beautiful  ANNABEL  LEE: 
For  the  moon  never  beams,  without  bringing  me  dreams 

Of  the  beautiful  ANNABEL  LEE; 
And  the  stars  never  rise,  but  I  feel  the  bright  eyes 

Of  the  beautiful  ANNABEL  LEE; 
And  so,  all  the  night-tide,  I  lie  down  by  the  side 
Of  my  darling  —  my  darling  —  my  life  and  my  bride, 

In  the  sepulchre  there  by  the  sea, 

In  her  tomb  by  the  sounding  sea. 


FOR  ANNIE 

THANK  Heaven!  the  crisis  — 
The  danger — is  past, 
And  the  lingering  illness 

Is  over  at  last, — 
And  the  fever  called  "  Living  " 
Is  conquered  at  last. 

Sadly,  I  know, 

I  am  shorn  of  my  strength, 
And  no  muscle  I  move 

As  I  lie  at  full  length ; 
But  no  matter  1  —  I  feel 

I  am  better  at  length. 

And  I  rest  so  composed 

Now,  in  my  bed, 
That  any  beholder 

Might  fancy  me  dead, — 
Might  start  at  beholding  me, 

Thinking  me  dead. 

The  moaning  and  groaning  — 
The  sighing  and  sobbing  — 

Are  quieted  now, 

With  that  horrible  throbbing 

At  heart:  —  ah,  that  horrible, 
Horrible  throbbing! 


The  sickness — the  nausea  — 

The  pitiless  pain  — 
Have  ceased,  with  the  fever 

That  maddened  my  brain, — 
With  the  fever  called  "Living" 

That  burned  in  my  brain. 

And  oh  !  of  all  tortures, 

That  torture  the  worst 
Has  abated  —  the  terrible 

Torture  of  thirst 
For  the  napthaline  river 

Of  Passion  accurst :  — 
I  have  drank  of  a  water 

That  quenches  all  thirst :  — 

Of  a  water  that  flows, 
With  a  lullaby  sound, 

From  a  spring  but  a  very  few 
Feet  under  ground, — 

From  a  cavern  not  very  far 
Down  under  ground. 

And  ah  I  let  it  never 

Be  foolishly  said 
That  my  room  it  is  gloomy, 

And  narrow  my  bed ; 
For  man  never  slept 

In  a  different  bed, — 
And,  to  sleep,  you  must  slumber 

In  just  such  a  bed. 


My  tantalized  spirit 

Here  blandly  reposes, 
Forgetting,  or  never 

Regretting  its  roses, — 
Its  old  agitations 

Of  myrtles  and  roses. 

For  now,  while  so  quietly 

Lying,  it  fancies 
A  holier  odor 

About  it,  of  pansies, — 
A  rosemary  odor 

Commingled  with  pansies, — 
\Vith  rue  and  the  beautiful 

Puritan  pansies. 

And  so  it  lies  happily, 

Bathing  in  many 
A  dream  of  the  truth 

And  the  beauty  of  Annie, — 
Drowned  in  a  bath 

Of  the  tresses  of  Annie. 

She  tenderly  kissed  me, 

She  fondly  caressed, 
And  then  I  fell  gently 

To  sleep  on  her  breast, — 
Deeply  to  sleep 

From  the  heaven  of  her  breast. 

When  the  light  was  extinguished 
She  covered  me  warm, 


And  she  prayed  to  the  angels 
To  keep  me  from  harm, — 

To  the  queen  of  the  angels 
To  shield  me  from  harm. 

And  I  lie  so  composedly, 

Now,  in  my  bed, 
(Knowing  her  love) 

That  you  fancy  me  dead, — 
And  I  rest  so  contentedly, 

Now  in  my  bed, 
(With  her  love  at  my  breast) 

That  you  fancy  me  dead, — 
That  you  shudder  to  look  at  me, 

Thinking  me  dead. 

But  my  heart  it  is  brighter 

Than  all  of  the  many 
Stars  in  the  sky, 

For  it  sparkles  with  Annie, 
It  glows  with  the  light 

Of  the  love  of  my  Annie, — 
With  the  thought  of  the  light 

Of  the  eyes  of  my  Annie. 


32 


TO    F S    S.    O D 

THOU  wouldst  be  loved?     Then  let  thy  heart 
From  its  present  pathway  part  not ! 
Being  everything  which  now  thou  art, 

Be  nothing  which  thou  art  not. 
So  with  the  world  thy  gentle  ways, 
Thy  grace,  thy  more  than  beauty, 
Shall  be  an  endless  theme  of  praise, 
And  love  —  a  simple  duty. 


TO 


NOT  long  ago,  the  writer  of  these  lines, 
In  the  mad  pride  of  intellectuality, 
Maintained  "the  power  of  words,"  —  denied  that  ever 
A  thought  arose  within  the  human  brain 
Beyond  the  utterance  of  the  human  tongue : 
And  now,  as  if  in  mockery  of  that  boast, 
Two  words  —  two  foreign  soft  dissyllables  — 
Italian  tones,  made  only  to  be  murmured 
By  angels  dreaming  in  the  moonlit  "  dew 
That  hangs  like  chains  of  pearl  on  Hermon  hill," — 
Have  stirred  from  out  the  abysses  of  his  heart, 
Unthought-like  thoughts  that  are  the  souls  of  thought, 
Richer,  far  wider,  far  diviner  visions 
Than  even  the  seraph  harper  Israfel 
(Who  has  "the  sweetest  voice  of  all  God's  creatures") 
Could  hope  to  utter.     And  I !  my  spells  are  broken. 
The  pen  falls  powerless  from  my  shivering  hand. 
With  thy  dear  name  as  text,  though  bidden  by  thee, 
I  cannot  write  —  I  cannot  speak  or  think  — 
Alas,  I  cannot  feel ;  for  'tis  not  feeling, 
This  standing  motionless  upon  the  golden 
Threshold  of  the  wide  open  gate  of  dreams, 
Gazing,  entranced,  adown  the  gorgeous  vista, 
And  thrilling  as  I  see,  upon  the  right, 
Upon  the  left,  and  all  the  way  along, 
Amid  unpurpled  vapors,  far  away, 
To  where  the  prospect  terminates  —  thee  only. 


THE   CITY    IN   THE    SEA 

Lo !  Death  has  reared  himself  a  throne 
In  a  strange  city  lying  alone 
Far  down  within  the  dim  West, 

Where  the  good  and  the  bad  and  the  worst  and  the  best 
Have  gone  to  their  eternal  rest. 
There  shrines  and  palaces  and  towers 
(Time-eaten  towers  that  tremble  not  ! ) 
Resemble  nothing  that  is  ours. 
Around,  by  lifting  winds  forgot, 
Resignedly  beneath  the  sky 
The  melancholy  waters  lie. 

No  rays  from  the  holy  heaven  come  down 
On  the  long  night-time  of  that  town ; 
But  light  from  out  the  lurid  sea 
Streams  up  the  turrets  silently  — 
Gleams  up  the  pinnacles  far  and  free  — 
Up  domes  —  up  spires  —  up  kingly  halls  — 
Up  fanes  —  up  Babylon-like  walls  — 
Up  shadowy  long-forgotten  bowers 
Of  sculptured  ivy  and  stone  flowers  — 
Up  many  and  many  a  marvellous  shrine 
Whose  wreathed  friezes  intertwine 
The  viol,  the  violet,  and  the  vine. 

Resignedly,  beneath  the  sky 

The  melancholy  waters  lie. 

So  blend  the  turrets  and  shadows  there 

That  all  seem  pendulous  in  air ; 


.o 


While,  from  a  proud  tower  in  the  town 
Death  looks  gigantically  down. 

There  open  fanes  and  gaping  graves 

Yawn  level  with  the  luminous  waves, 

But  not  the  riches  there  that  lie 

In  each  idol's  diamond  eye, — 

Not  the  gayly-jewelled  dead 

Tempt  the  waters  from  their  bed ; 

For  no  ripples  curl,  alas ! 

Along  that  wilderness  of  glass ; 

No  swellings  tell  that  winds  may  be 

Upon  some  far-off  happier  sea; 

No  heavings  hint  that  winds  have  been 

On  scenes  less  hideously  serene. 

But  lo  1  a  stir  is  in  the  air  I 
The  wave  —  there  is  a  movement  there! 
As  if  the  towers  had  thrust  aside, 
In  slightly  sinking,  the  dull  tide, — 
As  if  their  tops  had  feebly  given 
A  void  within  the  filmy  Heaven. 
The  waves  have  now  a  redder  glow, 
The  hours  are  breathing  faint  and  low ; 
And  when,  amid  no  earthly  moans, 
Down,  down  that  town  shall  settle  hence, 
Hell,  rising  from  a  thousand  thrones, 
Shall  do  it  reverence. 


THE    CONQUEROR    WORM 

Lo  1  'tis  a  gala  night 
Within  the  lonesome  latter  years. 
An  angel  throng,  bewinged,  bedight 

In  veils,  and  drowned  in  tears, 
Sit  in  a  theatre,  to  see 

A  play  of  hopes  and  fears, 
While  the  orchestra  breathes  fitfully 
The  music  of  the  spheres. 

Mimes,  in  the  form  of  God  on  high, 

Mutter  and  mumble  low, 
And  hither  and  thither  fly, — 

Mere  puppets  they,  who  come  and  go 
At  bidding  of  vast  formless  things 

That  shift  the  scenery  to  and  fro, 
Flapping  from  out  their  Condor  wings 

Invisible  Woe  1 

That  motley  drama  —  oh,  be  sure 

It  shall  not  be  forgot  1 
With  its  Phantom  chased  for  evermore, 

By  a  crowd  that  seize  it  not, 
Through  a  circle  that  ever  returneth  in 

To  the  self-same  spot, 
And  much  of  Madness,  and  more  of  Sin, 

And  Horror  the  soul  of  the  plot. 


But  see,  amid  the  mimic  rout 

A  crawling  shape  intrude ! 
A  blood-red  thing  that  writhes  from  out 

The  scenic  solitude ! 
It  writhes  1  —  it  writhes !  —  with  mortal  pangs 

The  mimes  become  its  food, 
And  the  angels  sob  at  vermin  fangs 

In  human  gore  imbrued. 

Out  —  out  are  the  lights  —  out  all  1 

And,  over  each  quivering  form, 
The  curtain,  a  funeral  pall, 

Comes  down  with  the  rush  of  a  storm, 
And  the  angels,  all  pallid  and  wan, 

Uprising,  unveiling,  affirm 
That  the  play  is  the  tragedy,  "  Man," 

And  its  hero  the  Conqueror  Worm. 


THE    SLEEPER 

AT  midnight,  in  the  month  of  June, 
I  stand  beneath  the  mystic  moon. 
An  opiate  vapor,  dewy,  dim, 
Exhales  from  out  her  golden  rim, 
And,  softly  dripping,  drop  by  drop, 
Upon  the  quiet  mountain-top, 
Steals  drowsily  and  musically 
Into  the  universal  valley. 
The  rosemary  nods  upon  the  grave ; 
The  lily  lolls  upon  the  wave; 
Wrapping  the  fog  about  its  breast, 
The  ruin  moulders  into  rest ; 
Looking  like  Lethe,  see  1  the  lake 
A  conscious  slumber  seems  to  take, 
And  would  not,  for  the  world,  awake. 
All  Beauty  sleeps  I     And  lo !  where  lies 
(Her  casement  open  to  the  skies) 
Irene,  with  her  Destinies ! 
Oh,  lady  bright  1  can  it  be  right  — 
This  window  open  to  the  night?  — 
The  wanton  airs,  from  the  tree-top, 
Laughingly  through  the  lattice  drop, — 
The  bodiless  airs,  a  wizard  rout, 
Flit  through  thy  chamber  in  and  out, 
And  wave  the  curtain  canopy 
So  fitfully  — so  fearfully  — 


39 


Above  the  closed  and  fringed  lid 
'Neath  which  thy  slumb'ring  soul  lies  hid, 
That,  o'er  the  floor  and  down  the  wall, 
Like  ghosts  the  shadows  rise  and  fall ! 
Oh,  lady  dear,  hast  thou  no  fear? 
Why  and  what  art  thou  dreaming  here  ? 
Sure  thou  art  come  o'er  far-off  seas, 
A  wonder  to  these  garden-trees ! 
Strange  is  thy  pallor !  strange  thy  dress ! 
Strange,  above  all,  thy  length  of  tress, 
And  this  all  solemn  silentness ! 

The  lady  sleeps !     Oh,  may  her  sleep, 
Which  is  enduring,  so  be  deep  1 
Heaven  have  her  in  its  sacred  keep ! 
This  chamber  changed  for  one  more  holy, 
This  bed  for  one  more  melancholy, 
I  pray  to  God  that  she  may  lie 
Forever  with  unopened  eye, 
While  the  dim  sheeted  ghosts  go  by  I 

My  love,  she  sleeps !     Oh,  may  her  sleep, 

As  it  is  lasting,  so  be  deep ! 

Soft  may  the  worms  about  her  creep ! 

Far  in  the  forest,  dim  and  old, 

For  her  may  some  tall  vault  unfold, — 

Some  vault  that  oft  hath  flung  its  black 

And  winged  panels  fluttering  back, 

Triumphant,  o'er  the  crested  palls 

Of  her  grand  family  funerals, — 

Some  sepulchre,  remote,  alone, 

Against  whose  portal  she  hath  thrown, 


i 


In  childhood  many  an  idle  stone, — 
Some  tomb  from  out  whose  sounding  door 
She  ne'er  shall  force  an  echo  more, 
Thrilling  to  think,  poor  child  of  sinl 
It  was  the  dead  who  groaned  within. 


THE   COLISEUM 


TYPE  of  the  antique  Rome !     Rich  reliquary 
Of  lofty  contemplation  left  to  Time 
By  buried  centuries  of  pomp  and  power! 
At  length  —  at  length  —  after  so  many  days 
Of  weary  pilgrimage  and  burning  thirst, 
(Thirst  for  the  springs  of  lore  that  in  thee  lie,) 
I  kneel,  an  altered  and  an  humble  man, 
Amid  thy  shadows,  and  so  drink  within 
My  very  soul  thy  grandeur,  gloom,  and  glory ! 

Vastness !  and  Age  I  and  Memories  of  Eld ! 
Silence!  and  Desolation!  and  dim  Night! 
I  feel  ye  now  —  I  feel  ye  in  your  strength  — 
Oh,  spells  more  sure  than  e'er  Judean  king 
Taught  in  the  gardens  of  Gethsemane ! 
Oh,  charms  more  potent  than  the  rapt  Chaldee 
Ever  drew  down  from  out  the  quiet  stars ! 

Here,  where  a  hero  fell,  a  column  falls  1 

Here,  where  a  mimic  eagle  glared  in  gold, 

A  midnight  vigil  holds  the  swarthy  bat ! 

Here,  where  the  dames  of  Rome  their  gilded  hair 

Waved  to  the  wind,  now  wave  the  reed  and  thistle  I 

Here,  where  on  golden  throne  the  monarch  lolled, 

Glides,  spectre-like,  unto  his  marble  home, 

Lit  by  the  wan  light  of  the  horned  moon, 

The  swift  and  silent  lizard  of  the  stones! 

But  stay !     These  walls  —  these  ivy-clad  arcades  — 


1 2 


These  mouldering  plinths  —  these  sad  and  blackened 

shafts  — 

These  vague  entablatures  —  this  crumbling  frieze  — 
These  shattered  cornices  —  this  wreck  —  this  ruin  — 
These  stones  —  alas !  these  gray  stones  —  are  they  all  — 
All  of  the  famed  and  the  colossal  left 
By  the  corrosive  Hours  to  Fate  and  me  ? 

"  Not  all  1 "  the  echoes  answered  me.     "  Not  all ! 

Prophetic  sounds  and  loud,  arise  forever 

From  us,  and  from  all  Ruin,  unto  the  wise, 

As  melody  from  Memnon  to  the  Sun. 

We  rule  the  hearts  of  mightiest  men!  —  we  rule 

With  a  despotic  sway  all  giant  minds ! 

We  are  not  impotent  —  we  pallid  stones. 

Not  all  our  power  is  gone!  —  not  all  our  fame!  — 

Not  all  the  magic  of  our  high  renown !  — 

Not  all  the  wonder  that  encircles  usl  — 

Not  all  the  mysteries  that  in  us  lie !  — 

Not  all  the  memories  that  hang  upon 

And  cling  around  about  us  as  a  garment, 

Clothing  us  in  a  robe  of  more  than  glory." 


DREAM-LAND 


BY  a  route  obscure  and  lonely, 
Haunted  by  ill  angels  only, 
Where  an  Eidolon,  named  NIGHT, 
On  a  black  throne  reigns  upright, 
I  have  reached  these  lands  but  newly, 
From  an  ultimate  dim  Thule, — 
From  a  wild  weird  clime  that  lieth,  sublime, 
Out  of  SPACE  —  out  of  TIME. 

Bottomless  vales  and  boundless  floods, 
And  chasms,  and  caves,  and  Titan  woods, 
With  forms  that  no  man  can  discover 
For  the  dews  that  drip  all  over; 
Mountains  toppling  evermore 
Into  seas  without  a  shore; 
Seas  that  restlessly  aspire, 
Surging,  into  skies  of  fire; 
Lakes  that  endlessly  outspread 
Their  lone  waters  —  lone  and  dead, — 
Their  still  waters  —  still  and  chilly 
With  the  snows  of  the  lolling  lily. 

By  the  lakes  that  thus  outspread 
Their  lone  waters,  lone  and  dread, — 
Their  sad  waters,  sad  and  chilly 
With  the  snows  of  the  lolling  lily, — 
By  the  mountains  —  near  the  river 
Murmuring  lowly,  murmuring  ever, — 


I  ! 


By  the  gray  woods, —  by  the  swamp 
Where  the  toad  and  the  newt  encamp, — 
By  the  dismal  tarns  and  pools 
Where  dwell  the  Ghouls,— 
By  each  spot  the  most  unholy, — 
In  each  nook  most  melancholy, — 
There  the  traveller  meets  aghast 
Sheeted  Memories  of  the  Past, — 
Shrouded  forms  that  start  and  sigh 
As  they  pass  the  wanderer  by, — 
White-robed  forms  of  friends  long  given 
In  agony,  to  the  Earth, —  and  Heaven. 

For  the  heart  whose  woes  are  legion 
'Tis  a  peaceful,  soothing  region, — 
For  the  spirit  that  walks  in  shadow 
'Tis  —  oh,  'tis  an  Eldorado! 
But  the  traveller,  travelling  through  it, 
May  not  —  dare  not  —  openly  view  it; 
Never  its  mysteries  are  exposed 
To  the  weak  human  eye  unclosed ; 
So  wills  its  King,  who  hath  forbid 
The  uplifting  of  the  fringed  lid ; 
And  thus  the  sad  Soul  that  here  passes 
Beholds  it  but  through  darkened  glasses. 
By  a  route  obscure  and  lonely, 
Haunted  by  ill  angels  only, 
Where  an  Eidolon,  named  NIGHT, 
On  a  black  throne  reigns  upright, 
I  have  wandered  home  but  newly 
From  this  ultimate  dim  Thule. 


45 


EULALIE 

I  DWELT  alone 
In  a  world  of  moan, 
And  my  soul  was  a  stagnant  tide, 
Till  the  fair  and  gentle  Eulalie  became  my  blushing 

bride, — 

Till  the  yellow-haired  young  Eulalie  became  my  smiling 
bride. 

Ah,  less  —  less  bright 
The  stars  of  the  night 
Than  the  eyes  of  the  radiant  girl ; 
And  never  a  flake 
That  the  vapor  can  make 
With  the  moon-tints  of  purple  and  pearl, 
Can  vie  with  the  modest  Eulalie's  most  unregarded 

curl, — 

Can    compare    with    the    bright-eyed    Eulalie's    most 
humble  and  careless  curl. 

Now  Doubt  —  now  Pain 
Come  never  again, 
For  her  soul  gives  me  sigh  for  sigh, 
And  all  day  long 
Shines  bright  and  strong, 
Astarte  within  the  sky, 
While  ever  to  her  dear  Eulalie  upturns  her  matron 

eye, — 

While  ever  to  her  young  Eulalie  upturns  her  violet 
eye. 


46 


TO    MY    MOTHER 

BECAUSE  I  feel  that,  in  the  Heavens  above, 
The  angels,  whispering  to  one  another, 
Can  find,  among  their  burning  terms  of  love, 

None  so  devotional  as  that  of  "  Mother," 
Therefore  by  that  dear  name  I  long  have  called  you, — 

You  who  are  more  than  mother  unto  me, 
And  fill  my  heart  of  hearts,  where  Death  installed  you, 

In  setting  my  Virginia's  spirit  free. 
My  mother — my  own  mother,  who  died  early, 

Was  but  the  mother  of  myself;  but  you 
Are  mother  to  the  one  I  loved  so  dearly, 

And  thus  are  dearer  than  the  mother  I  knew 
By  that  infinity  with  which  my  wife 
Was  dearer  to  my  soul  than  its  own  soul-life. 


47 


ELDORADO 


AYLY  bedight, 

A  gallant  knight, 
In  sunshine  and  in  shadow, 
Had  journeyed  long, 
Singing  a  song, 
In  search  of  Eldorado. 

But  he  grew  old,  — 

This  knight  so  bold,— 
And  o'er  his  heart  a  shadow 

Fell  as  he  found 

No  spot  of  ground 
That  looked  like  Eldorado. 

And,  as  his  strength 
Failed  him  at  length, 

He  met  a  pilgrim  Shadow. 
"  Shadow,"  said  he, 
"  Where  can  it  be  — 

This  land  of  Eldorado  ?  " 

"  Over  the  Mountains 

Of  the  Moon, 
Down  the  Valley  of  the  Shadow, 

Ride,  boldly  ride," 

The  Shade  replied,— 
"  If  you  seek  for  Eldorado  1  " 


48 


TO    F 

BELOVED,  amid  the  earnest  woes 
That  crowd  around  my  earthly  path,- 
( Drear  path,  alas!  where  grows 
Not  even  one  lonely  rose), — 

My  soul  at  least  a  solace  hath 
In  dreams  of  thee,  and  therein  knows 
An  Eden  of  bland  repose. 

And  thus  my  memory  is  to  me 
Like  some  enchanted  far-off  isle 

In  some  tumultuous  sea, — 

Some  ocean  throbbing  far  and  free 
With  storms, —  but  where  meanwhile 

Serenest  skies  continually 

Just  o'er  that  one  bright  island  smile. 


TO    ONE    IN    PARADISE 

THOU  wast  that  all  to  me,  love, 
For  which  my  soul  did  pine, — 
A  green  isle  in  the  sea,  love, 

A  fountain  and  a  shrine, 
All  wreathed  with  fairy  fruits  and  flowers, 
And  all  the  flowers  were  mine. 

Ah,  dream  too  bright  to  last ! 

Ah,  starry  Hope !  that  didst  arise 
But  to  be  overcast ! 

A  voice  from  out  the  future  cries, 
"  On  1  on !  "     But  o'er  the  Past 

(Dim  gulf !)  my  spirit  hovering  lies 
Mute,  motionless,  aghast! 

For,  alas  1  alas !  with  me 

The  light  of  Life  is  o'er  1 
"No  more  —  no  more  —  no  more  —  " 

(Such  language  holds  the  solemn  sea 
To  the  sands  upon  the  shore) 

Shall  bloom  the  thunder-blasted  tree, 
Or  the  stricken  eagle  soar ! 

And  all  my  days  are  trances, 

And  all  my  nightly  dreams 
Are  where  thy  dark  eye  glances, 

And  where  thy  footstep  gleams, — 
In  what  ethereal  dances, 

By  what  eternal  streams. 


HYMN 

AT  morn  —  at  noon  —  at  twilight  dim 
Maria,  thou  hast  heard  my  hymn ! 
In  joy  and  woe  —  in  good  and  ill  — 
Mother  of  God,  be  with  me  still  1 
When  the  Hours  flew  brightly  by, 
And  not  a  cloud  obscured  the  sky, 
My  soul,  lest  it  should  truant  be, 
Thy  grace  did  guide  to  thine  and  thee : 
Now,  when  storms  of  Fate  o'ercast 
Darkly  my  Present  and  my  Past, 
Let  my  Future  radiant  shine 
With  sweet  hopes  of  thee  and  thine  1 


A  DREAM  WITHIN  A  DREAM 

TAKE  this  kiss  upon  the  brow ! 
And,  in  parting  from  you  now, 
Thus  much  let  me  avow : 
You  are  not  wrong,  who  deem 
That  my  days  have  been  a  dream ; 
Yet  if  Hope  has  flown  away 
In  a  night,  or  in  a  day, 
In  a  vision,  or  in  none, 
Is  it  therefore  the  less  gone  ? 
All  that  we  see  or  seem 
Is  but  a  dream  within  a  dream. 

I  stand  amid  the  roar 
Of  a  surf -tormented  shore, 
And  I  hold  within  my  hand 
Grains  of  the  golden  sand : 
How  few!  yet  how  they  creep 
Through  my  ringers  to  the  deep, 
While  I  weep, — while  I  weep ! 
Oh,  God  1  can  I  not  grasp 
Them  with  a  tighter  clasp  ? 
Oh,  God !  can  I  not  save 
One  from  the  pitiless  wave  ? 
Is  all  that  we  see  or  seem 
But  a  dream  within  a  dream? 


TO    ZANTE 

FAIR  isle,  that  from  the  fairest  of  all  flowers, 
Thy  gentlest  of  all  gentle  names  dost  take  ! 
How  many  memories  of  what  radiant  hours 

At  sight  of  thee  and  thine  at  once  awake ! 
How  many  scenes  of  what  departed  bliss ! 

How  many  thoughts  of  what  entombed  hopes  I 
How  many  visions  of  a  maiden  that  is 

No  more  —  no  more  upon  thy  verdant  slopes  1 
No  more  !     Alas,  that  magical  sad  sound 

Transforming  all !     Thy  charms  shall  please  no  more, 
Thy  memory  no  more!     Accursed  ground 

Henceforth  I  hold  thy  flower-enamelled  shore, 
Oh,  hyacinthine  isle!     Oh,  purple  Zantel 
"  Isola  d'oro !     Fior  di  Levante ! " 


! 


THE    HAUNTED    PALACE 

IN  the  greenest  of  our  valleys 
By  good  angels  tenanted, 
Once  a  fair  and  stately  palace  — 

Radiant  palace — reared  its  head. 
In  the  monarch  Thought's  dominion  — 

It  stood  there ! 
Never  seraph  spread  a  pinion 
Over  fabric  half  so  fair! 

Banners  yellow,  glorious,  golden, 

On  its  roof  did  float  and  flow, 
(This  —  all  this  —  was  in  the  olden 

Time  long  ago,) 
And  every  gentle  air  that  dallied, 

In  that  sweet  day, 
Along  the  ramparts  plumed  and  pallid, 

A  winged  odor  went  away. 

Wanderers  in  that  happy  valley, 

Through  two  luminous  windows,  saw 
Spirits  moving  musically, 

To  a  lute's  well-tuned  law, 
Round  about  a  throne  where,  sitting 

(Porphyrogene !) 
In  state  his  glory  well  befitting, 

The  ruler  of  the  realm  was  seen. 


And  all  with  pearl  and  ruby  glowing 

Was  the  fair  palace  door, 
Through  which  came  flowing,  flowing,  flowing, 

And  sparkling  ever  more, 
A  troop  of  Echoes,  whose  sweet  duty 

Was  but  to  sing, 
In  voices  of  surpassing  beauty, 

The  wit  and  wisdom  of  their  king. 

But  evil  things,  in  robes  of  sorrow, 

Assailed  the  monarch's  high  estate. 
(Ah,  let  us  mourn  !  —  for  never  morrow 

Shall  dawn  upon  him  desolate  1 ) 
And  round  about  his  home  the  glory 

That  blushed  and  bloomed, 
Is  but  a  dim-remembered  story 

Of  the  old  time  entombed. 

And  travellers,  now,  within  that  valley, 

Through  the  red-litten  windows  see 
Vast  forms,  that  move  fantastically 

To  a  discordant  melody, 
While,  like  a  ghastly  rapid  river, 

Through  the  pale  door 
A  hideous  throng  rush  out  forever 

And  laugh, —  but  smile  no  more. 


55 


SILENCE 

THERE  are  some  qualities  —  some  incorporate  things- 
That  have  a  double  life,  which  thus  is  made 
A  type  of  that  twin  entity  which  springs 

From  matter  and  light,  evinced  in  solid  and  shade. 
There  is  a  twofold  Silence  —  sea  and  shore  — 

Body  and  soul.     One  dwells  in  lonely  places, 

Newly  with  grass  o'ergrown ;  some  solemn  graces, 
Some  human  memories,  and  tearful  lore, 
Render  him  terrorless :  his  name's  "  No  More." 
He  is  the  corporate  Silence :  dread  him  not  I 

No  power  hath  he  of  evil  in  himself ; 
But  should  some  urgent  fate  (untimely  lot  1 ) 

Bring  thee  to  meet  his  shadow  (nameless  elf, 
That  haunteth  the  lone  regions  where  hath  trod 
No  foot  of  man),  commend  thyself  to  God! 


; 


ISRAFEL' 

IN  Heaven  a  spirit  doth  dwell, 
"  Whose  heartstrings  are  a  lute." 
None  sing  so  wildly  well 
As  the  angel,  Israfel, 
And  the  giddy  stars  (so  legends  tell) 
Ceasing  their  hymns,  attend  the  spell 
Of  his  voice,  all  mute. 

Tottering  above, 

In  her  highest  noon, 

The  enamoured  moon 
Blushes  with  love, — 

While,  to  listen,  the  red  leven 

(With  the  rapid  Pleiades,  even, 

Which  were  seven,) 

Pauses  in  Heaven. 

And  they  say  (the  starry  choir 
And  the  other  listening  things) 

That  Israfeli's  fire 

Is  owing  to  that  lyre 

By  which  he  sits  and  sings, — 

The  trembling  living  wire 

Of  those  unusual  strings. 


i  And  the  angel  Israfel,  whose  heartstrings  are  a 
lute,  and  who  has  the  sweetest  voice  of  all  God's 
rreatures. — KORAN. 


:- 


But  the  skies  that  angel  trod, 

Where  deep  thoughts  are  a  duty  — 

Where  Love's  a  grown-up  God, — 
Where  the  Houri  glances  are 

Imbued  with  all  the  beauty 
Which  we  worship  in  a  star. 

Therefore,  thou  art  not  wrong, 

Israfeli,  who  despisest 
An  unimpassioned  song: 
To  thee  the  laurels  belong, 

Best  bard,  because  the  wisest ! 
Merrily  live,  and  long  1 

The  ecstasies  above 

With  thy  burning  measures  suit 
Thy  grief,  thy  joy,  thy  hate,  thy  love, 

With  the  fervor  of  thy  lute : 

Well  may  the  stars  be  mute! 

Yes,  Heaven  is  thine;  but  this 
Is  a  world  of  sweets  and  sours : 
Our  flowers  are  merely  —  flowers, 

And  the  shadow  of  thy  perfect  bliss 
Is  the  sunshine  of  ours. 

If  I  could  dwell 
Where  Israfel 

Hath  dwelt,  and  he  where  I, 
He  might  not  sing  so  wildly  well 

A  mortal  melody, — 
While  a  bolder  note  than  this  might  swell 

From  my  lyre  within  the  sky. 


TO    L.    M.    S 

OF  all  who  hail  thy  presence  as  the  morning, — 
Of  all  to  whom  thine  absence  is  the  night, — 
The  blotting  utterly  from  out  high  heaven 
The  sacred  sun, —  of  all  who,  weeping,  bless  thee 
Hourly  for  hope  —  for  life  —  ah!  above  all, 
For  the  resurrection  of  deep-buried  faith 
In  Truth  —  in  Virtue  —  in  Humanity, — 
Of  all  who,  on  Despair's  unhallow'd  bed 
Lying  down  to  die,  have  suddenly  arisen 
At  thy  soft-murmured  words,  "Let  there  be  light!" 
At  the  soft-murmured  words  that  were  fulfilled 
In  the  seraphic  glancing  of  thine  eyes, — 
Of  all  who  owe  thee  most,  whose  gratitude 
Nearest  resembles  worship, —  oh,  remember 
The  truest  —  the  most  fervently  devoted, 
And  think  that  these  weak  lines  are  written  by  him,- 
By  him  who,  as  he  pens  them,  thrills  to  think 
His  spirit  is  communing  with  an  angel's. 


59 


THE    VALLEY    OF    UNREST 


ONCE  it  smiled  a  silent  dell 
Where  the  people  did  not  dwell; 
They  had  gone  unto  the  wars, 
Trusting  to  the  mild-eyed  stars, 
Nightly,  from  their  azure  towers, 
To  keep  watch  above  the  flowers, 
In  the  midst  of  which  all  day 
The  red  sunlight  lazily  lay. 
Now  each  visitor  shall  confess 
The  sad  valley's  restlessness. 
Nothing  there  is  motionless, — 
Nothing  save  the  airs  that  brood 
Over  the  magic  solitude. 
Ah,  by  no  wind  are  stirred  those  trees 
That  palpitate  like  the  chill  seas 
Around  the  misty  Hebrides ! 
Ah,  by  no  wind  those  clouds  are  driven 
That  rustle  through  the  unquiet  Heaven 
Uneasily,  from  morn  till  even, 
Over  the  violets  there  that  lie 
In  myriad  types  of  the  human  eye, — 
Over  the  lilies  there  that  wave 
And  weep  above  a  nameless  grave  1 
They  wave:  —  from  out  their  fragrant  tops 
Eternal  dews  come  down  in  drops. 
They  weep:  —  from  off  their  delicate  stems 
Perennial  tears  descend  in  gems. 


POEMS  WRITTEN  IN  YOUTH 


Private  reasons  —  some  of  which  have 
reference  to  the  sin  of  plagiarism,  and 
others  to  the  date  of  Tennyson's  first 
poems  —  have  induced  me,  after  some 
hesitation,  to  republish  these,  the  crude 
compositions  of  my  earliest  boyhood. 
They  are  printed  -verbatim,  without 
alteration  from  the  original  edition,  the 
date  of  which  is  too  remote  to  be 
judiciously  acknowledged.— E.  A.  P. 


TO    HELEN 


HELEN,  thy  beauty  is  to  me 
Like  those  Nicean  barks  of  yore, 
That  gently,  o'er  a  perfumed  sea, 
The  weary,  wayworn  wanderer  bore 
To  his  own  native  shore. 

On  desperate  seas  long  wont  to  roam, 
Thy  hyacinth  hair,  thy  classic  face, 

Thy  Naiad  airs  have  brought  me  home 
To  the  glory  that  was  Greece 

And  the  grandeur  that  was  Rome. 

Lo !  in  yon  brilliant  window-niche 
How  statue-like  I  see  thee  stand ! 

The  agate  lamp  within  thy  hand, 
Ah  I  Psyche,,  from  the  regions  which 

Are  Holy  Land! 


SONNET  — TO    SCIENCE 

SCIENCE  !     True  daughter  of  Old  Time  thou  art ! 
Who  alterest  all  things  with  thy  peering  eyes. 
Why  preyest  thou  thus  upon  the  poet's  heart, 

Vulture,  whose  wings  are  dull  realities  ? 
How  should  he  love  thee  ?  or  how  deem  thee  wise, 

Who  wouldst  not  leave  him  in  his  wandering 
To  seek  for  treasure  in  the  jeweled  skies, 

Albeit  he  soared  with  an  undaunted  wing  ? 
Hast  thou  not  dragged  Diana  from  her  car  ? 

And  driven  the  Hamadryad  from  the  wood 
To  seek  a  shelter  in  some  happier  star  ? 

Hast  thou  not  torn  the  Naiad  from  her  flood, 
The  Elfin  from  the  green  grass,  and  from  me 
The  summer  dream  beneath  the  tamarind  tree  ? 


64 


SPIRITS    OF   THE   DEAD 

THY  soul  shall  find  itself  alone 
'Mid  dark  thoughts  of  the  gray  tombstone 
Not  one,  of  all  the  crowd,  to  pry 
Into  thine  hour  of  secrecy. 

Be  silent  in  that  solitude 

Which  is  not  loneliness, —  for  then 
The  spirits  of  the  dead  who  stood 

In  life  before  thee  are  again 
In  death  around  thee, — and  their  will 
Shall  overshadow  thee :  be  still. 

The  night,  though  clear,  shall  frown, — 

And  the  stars  shall  not  look  down 

From  their  high  thrones  in  Heaven, 

With  light  like  Hope  to  mortals  given: 

But  their  red  orbs,  without  beam, 

To  thy  weariness  shall  seem 

As  a  burning  and  a  fever 

Which  would  cling  to  thee  forever. 

Now  are  thoughts  thou  shalt  not  banish, — 

Now  are  visions  ne'er  to  vanish : 

From  thy  spirit  shall  they  pass 

No  more  —  like  dewdrops  from  the  grass. 

The  breeze  —  the  breath  of  God  —  is  still; 
And  the  mist  upon  the  hill 
Shadowy  —  shadowy  —  yet  unbroken, 
Is  a  symbol  and  a  token, — 
How  it  hangs  upon  the  trees, 
A  mystery  of  mysteries ! 

65 


FAIRY- LAND 

DIM  vales  —  and  shadowy  floods  — 
And  cloudy-looking  woods, 
Whose  forms  we  can't  discover 
For  the  tears  that  drip  all  over : 
Huge  moons  there  wax  and  wane, — 
Again  —  again  —  again  — 
Every  moment  of  the  night, — 
Forever  changing  places, — 
And  they  put  out  the  starlight 
With  the  breath  from  their  pale  faces. 
About  twelve  by  the  moon-dial, 
One  more  filmy  than  the  rest 
Comes  down  —  still  down  —  and  down 
With  its  centre  on  the  crown 
Of  a  mountain's  eminence, 
While  its  wide  circumference 
In  easy  drapery  falls 
Over  hamlets,  over  halls, 
Wherever  they  may  be : 
O'er  the  strange  woods —  o'er  the  sea  — 
Over  spirits  on  the  wing  — 
Over  every  drowsy  thing  — 
And  buries  them  up  quite 
In  a  labyrinth  of  light ; 
And  then,  how  deep !  —  oh,  deep 
Is  the  passion  of  their  sleep. 
In  the  morning  they  arise, 


66 


And  their  moony  covering 

Is  soaring  in  the  skies, 

With  the  tempests  as  they  toss, 

Like  — almost  anything  — 

Or  a  yellow  albatross. 

They  use  that  moon  no  more 

For  the  same  end  as  before, — 

Videlicet,  a  tent, 

Which  I  think  extravagant : 

Its  atomies,  however, 

Into  a  shower  dissever, 

Of  which  those  butterflies 

Of  Earth  who  seek  the  skies, 

And  so  come  down  again 

(Never-contented  things ! ) 

Have  brought  a  specimen 

Upon  their  quivering  wings. 


THE   LAKE.— TO 

IN  spring  of  youth  it  was  my  lot 
To  haunt  of  the  wide  world  a  spot 
The  which  I  could  not  love  the  less, — 
So  lovely  was  the  loveliness 
Of  a  wild  lake,  with  black  rock  bound, 
And  the  tall  pines  that  towered  around. 
But  when  the  night  had  thrown  her  pall 
Upon  that  spot,  as  upon  all, 
And  the  mystic  wind  went  by 
Murmuring  in  melody, — 
Then  —  ah,  then  I  would  awake 
To  the  terror  of  the  lone  lake. 
Yet  that  terror  was  not  fright, 
But  a  tremulous  delight, — 
A  feeling  not  the  jewelled  mine 
Could  teach  or  bribe  me  to  define, — 
Nor  Love  —  although  the  Love  were  thine. 

Death  was  in  that  poisonous  wave, 

And  its  gulf  a  fitting  grave 

For  him  who  thence  could  solace  bring 

To  his  lone  imagining, — 

Whose  solitary  soul  could  make 

An  Eden  of  that  dim  lake. 


68 


A    DREAM 


IN  visions  of  the  dark  night 
I  have  dream'd  of  joy  departed  ; 
But  a  waking  dream  of  life  and  light 
Hath  left  me  broken-hearted. 

Ah,  what  is  not  a  dream  by  day 

To  him  whose  eyes  are  cast 
On  things  around  him  with  a  ray 

Turned  back  upon  the  past? 

That  holy  dream — that  holy  dream, 
While  all  the  world  were  chiding, 

Hath  cheered  me  as  a  lovely  beam 
A  lonely  spirit  guiding. 

What  tho'  that  light,  thro'  storm  and  night 

So  trembled  from  afar, — 
What  could  there  be  more  purely  bright 

In  Truth's  day  star  ? 


69 


ALONE 

FROM  childhood's  hour  I  have  not  been 
As  others  were, —  I  have  not  seen 
As  others  saw, —  I  could  not  bring 
My  passions  from  a  common  spring. 
From  the  same  source  I  have  not  taken 
My  sorrow ;  I  could  not  awaken 
My  heart  to  joy  at  the  same  tone ; 
And  all  I  loved,  /loved  alone. 
Then — in  my  childhood  —  in  the  dawn 
Of  a  most  stormy  life  was  drawn 
From  every  depth  of  good  and  ill 
The  mystery  which  binds  me  still : 
From  the  torrent,  or  the  fountain, 
From  the  red  cliff  of  the  mountain, 
From  the  sun  that  round  me  roll'd 
In  its  autumn  tint  of  gold, — 
From  the  lightning  in  the  sky 
As  it  pass'd  me  flying  by, — 
From  the  thunder  and  the  storm, 
And  the  cloud  that  took  the  form 
(When  the  rest  of  Heaven  was  blue) 
Of  a  demon  in  my  view. 


70 


TO  - 

THE  bowers  whereat,  in  dreams,  I  see 
The  wantonest  singing  birds, 
Are  lips  —  and  all  thy  melody 
Of  lip-begotten  words. 

Thine  eyes,  in  Heaven  of  heart  enshrin'd, 

Then  desolately  fall, 
Oh,  God !  on  my  funereal  mind 

Like  starlight  on  a  pall. 

Thy  heart  —  thy  heart  —  I  wake  and  sigh, 

And  sleep  to  dream  till  day 
Of  the  truth  that  gold  can  never  buy  — 

Of  the  baubles  that  it  may. 


TO   THE    RIVER 


FAIR  river  1  in  thy  bright,  clear  flow 
Of  crystal,  wandering  water, 
Thou  art  an  emblem  of  the  glow 

Of  beauty  —  the  unhidden  heart  — 
The  playful  maziness  of  art 
In  old  Alberto's  daughter; 

But  when  within  thy  wave  she  looks, 

Which  glistens  then,  and  trembles, — 
Why,  then,  the  prettiest  of  brooks 

Her  worshipper  resembles; 
For  in  his  heart,  as  in  thy  stream, 

Her  image  deeply  lies, — 
His  heart  which  trembles  at  the  beam 

Of  her  soul-searching  eyes. 


- 


TO 

I  HEED  not  that  my  earthly  lot 
Hath  —  little  of  Earth  in  it, — 
That  years  of  love  have  been  forgot 

In  the  hatred  of  a  minute : 
I  mourn  not  that  the  desolate 
Are  happier,  sweet,  than  I ; 
But  that  you  sorrow  for  my  fate 
Who  am  but  a  passer-by. 


SONG 


I  SAW  thee  on  the  bridal  day, 
When  a  burning  blush  came  o'er  thee, 
Though  happiness  around  thee  lay, 
The  world  all  love  before  thee : 

And  in  thine  eye  a  kindling  light 

(Whatever  it  might  be) 
Was  all  on  Earth  my  aching  sight 

Of  Loveliness  could  see. 

That  blush,  perhaps,  was  maiden  shame, — 

As  such  it  well  may  pass, — 
Though  its  glow  hath  raised  a  fiercer  flame 

In  the  breast  of  him,  alas! 

Who  saw  thee  on  that  bridal  day, 

When  that  deep  blush  would  come  o'er  thee, 
Though  happiness  around  thee  lay, 

The  world  all  love  before  thee. 


74 


ROMANCE 

ROMANCE,  who  loves  to  nod  and  sing, 
With  drowsy  head  and  folded  wing, 
Among  the  green  leaves  as  they  shake 
Far  down  within  some  shadowy  lake, 

To  me  a  painted  paroquet 
Hath  been  a  most  familiar  bird, — 

Taught  me  my  alphabet  to  say  — 
To  lisp  my  very  earliest  word 
While  in  the  wild  wood  I  did  lie, 
A  child  —  with  a  most  knowing  eye. 

Of  late,  eternal  Condor  years 

So  shake  the  very  Heaven  on  high 
With  tumult  as  they  thunder  by, 

I  have  no  time  for  idle  cares 

Through  gazing  on  the  unquiet  sky. 

And  when  an  hour  with  calmer  wings 

Its  down  upon  my  spirit  flings  — 
That  little  time  with  lyre  and  rhyme 

To  while  awTay  —  forbidden  things! 
My  heart  would  feel  to  be  a  crime, 

Unless  it  trembled  with  the  strings. 


75 


TO  EDGAR  ALLAN  POE 


Reprinted  from  Letters  to  Dead 
A  utkors  by  Andrew  Lang.  London, 
1886. 


TO    EDGAR    ALLAN    POE 

SIR, —  Your  English  readers,  better 
acquainted  with  your  poems  and 
romances  than  with  your  criticisms,  have 
long  wondered  at  the  indefatigable  hatred 
which  pursues  your  memory.  You,  who 
knew  the  men,  will  not  marvel  that  certain 
microbes  of  letters,  the  survivors  of  your 
own  generation,  still  harass  your  name  with 
their  malevolence,  while  old  women  twitter 
out  their  incredible  and  unheeded  slanders  in 
the  literary  papers  of  New  York.  But  their 
persistent  animosity  does  not  quite  suffice  to 
explain  the  dislike  with  which  many  Ameri 
can  critics  regard  the  greatest  poet,  perhaps 
the  greatest  literary  genius,  of  their  country. 
With  a  commendable  patriotism,  they  are 
not  apt  to  rate  native  merit  too  low;  and 
you,  I  think,  are  the  only  example  of  an 
American  prophet  almost  without  honour  in 
his  own  country. 

The  recent  publication  of  a  cold,  careful, 
and  in  many  respects  admirable  study  of 
your  career  (  "  Edgar  Allan  Poe,"  by  George 
Woodberry :  Houghton,  Mifflin  and  Co.,  Bos- 


79 


TO    EDGAR    ALLAN    POE 

ton)  reminds  English  readers  who  have  for 
gotten  it,  and  teaches  those  who  never  knew 
it,  that  you  were,  unfortunately,  a  Reviewer. 
How  unhappy  were  the  necessities,  how 
deplorable  the  vein,  that  compelled  or 
seduced  a  man  of  your  eminence  into  the 
dusty  and  stony  ways  of  contemporary  criti 
cism!  About  the  writers  of  his  own  gen 
eration  a  leader  of  that  generation  should 
hold  his  peace.  He  should  neither  praise 
nor  blame  nor  defend  his  equals ;  he  should 
not  strike  one  blow  at  the  buzzing  ephem 
erae  of  letters.  The  breath  of  their  life  is  in 
the  columns  of  "Literary  Gossip;"  and 
they  should  be  allowed  to  perish  with  the 
weekly  advertisements  on  which  they  pas 
ture.  Reviewing,  of  course,  there  must 
needs  be;  but  great  minds  should  only 
criticise  the  great  who  have  passed  beyond 
the  reach  of  eulogy  or  fault-finding. 

Unhappily,  taste  and  circumstances  com 
bined  to  make  you  a  censor;  you  vexed  a 
continent,  and  you  are  still  unforgiven. 
What  "irritation  of  a  sensitive  nature, 
chafed  by  some  indefinite  sense  of  wrong," 
drove  you  (in  Mr.  Longfellow's  own  words) 
to  attack  his  pure  and  beneficent  Muse  we 
may  never  ascertain.  But  Mr.  Longfellow 
forgave  you  easily ;  for  pardon  comes  easily 
to  the  great.  It  was  the  smaller  men,  the 


80 


TO    EDGAR   ALLAN    POE 

Daweses,  Gris wolds,  and  the  like,  that 
knew  not  how  to  forget.  "  The  New  Yorkers 
never  forgave  him,"  says  your  latest  biog 
rapher;  and  one  scarcely  marvels  at  the 
inveteracy  of  their  malice.  It  was  not  indi 
vidual  vanity  alone,  but  the  whole  literary 
class  that  you  assailed.  "  As  a  literary  peo 
ple,"  you  wrote,  "we  are  one  vast  perambu 
lating  humbug."  After  that  declaration  of 
war  you  died,  and  left  your  reputation  to 
the  vanities  yet  writhing  beneath  your  scorn. 
They  are  writhing  and  writing  still.  He 
who  knows  them  need  not  linger  over  the 
attacks  and  defences  of  your  personal  char 
acter;  he  will  not  waste  time  on  calumnies, 
tale-bearing,  private  letters,  and  all  the 
noisome  dust  which  takes  so  long  in  settling 
above  your  tomb. 

For  us  it  is  enough  to  know  that  you  were 
compelled  to  live  by  your  pen,  and  that  in 
an  age  when  the  author  of  "  To  Helen " 
and  "The  Cask  of  Amontillado"  was  paid 
at  the  rate  of  a  dollar  a  column.  When 
such  poverty  was  the  mate  of  such  pride  as 
yours,  a  misery  more  deep  than  that  of 
Burns,  an  agony  longer  than  Chatterton's 
were  inevitable  and  assured.  No  man  was 
less  fortunate  than  you  in  the  moment  of 
his  birth  —  infelix  opportunitate  vita.  Had 
you  lived  a  generation  later,  honour,  wealth, 


81 


TO    EDGAR    ALLAN    POE 

applause,  success  in  Europe  and  at  home, 
would  all  have  been  yours.  Within  thirty 
years  so  great  a  change  has  passed  over  the 
profession  of  letters  in  America;  and  it  is 
impossible  to  estimate  the  rewards  which 
would  have  fallen  to  Edgar  Poe,  had  chance 
made  him  the  contemporary  of  Mark  Twain 
and  of  "Called  Back."  It  may  be  that 
your  criticisms  helped  to  bring  in  the  new 
era,  and  to  lift  letters  out  of  the  reach  of 
quite  unlettered  scribblers.  Though  not  a 
scholar,  at  least  you  had  a  respect  for  schol 
arship.  You  might  still  marvel  over  such 
words  as  "  obj  ectional "  in  the  new  biogra 
phy  of  yourself,  and  might  ask  what  is 
meant  by  such  a  sentence  as  "his  connec 
tion  with  it  had  inured  to  his  own  benefit  by 
the  frequent  puffs  of  himself,"  and  so  forth. 
Best  known  in  your  own  day  as  a  critic,  it 
is  as  a  poet  and  a  writer  of  short  tales  that 
you  must  live.  But  to  discuss  your  few  and 
elaborate  poems  is  a  waste  of  time,  so  com 
pletely  does  your  own  brief  definition  of 
poetry,  "  the  rhythmic  creation  of  the  beau 
tiful,"  exhaust  your  theory,  and  so  perfectly 
is  the  theory  illustrated  by  the  poems.  Nat 
ural  bent,  and  reaction  against  the  example 
of  Mr.  Longfellow,  combined  to  make  you 
too  intolerant  of  what  you  call  the  "didac 
tic  "  element  in  verse.  Even  if  morality  be 


82 


TO    EDGAR    ALLAN    POE 

not  seven-eighths  of  our  life  (the  exact  pro 
portion  as  at  present  estimated),  there  was  a 
place  even  on  the  Hellenic  Parnassus  for 
gnomic  bards,  and  theirs  in  the  nature  of 
the  case  must  always  be  the  largest  public. 

"Music  is  the  perfection  of  the  soul  or 
the  idea  of  poetry,"  so  you  wrote;  "the 
vagueness  of  exaltation  aroused  by  a  sweet 
air  (which  should  be  indefinite  and  never  too 
strongly  suggestive),  is  precisely  what  we 
should  aim  at  in  poetry."  You  aimed  at 
that  mark,  and  struck  it  again  and  again, 
notably  in  "  Helen,  thy  beauty  is  to  me,"  in 
"The  Haunted  Palace,"  "The  Valley  of 
Unrest,"  and  "The  City  in  the  Sea."  But 
by  some  Nemesis  which  might,  perhaps, 
have  been  foreseen,  you  are,  to  the  world, 
the  poet  of  one  poem  —  "The  Raven:"  a 
piece  in  which  the  music  is  highly  artificial, 
and  the  "  exaltation  "  (what  there  is  of  it)  by 
no  means  particularly  "vague."  So  a  por 
tion  of  the  public  know  little  of  Shelley  but 
the  "Skylark,"  and  those  two  incongruous 
birds,  the  lark  and  the  raven,  bear  each  of 
them  a  poet's  name,  vivuj  per  ora  virum. 
Your  theory  of  poetry,  if  accepted,  would 
make  you  (after  the  author  of  "  Kubla 
Khan")  the  foremost  of  the  poets  of  the 
world ;  at  no  long  distance  would  come  Mr. 
William  Morris  as  he  was  when  he  wrote 


TO    EDGAR   ALLAN    POE 

"Golden  Wings,"  "The  Blue  Closet,"  and 
"  The  Sailing  of  the  Sword ; "  and,  close  up, 
Mr.  Lear,  the  author  of  "  The  Yongi  Bongi 
Bo,"  and  the  lay  of  the  "  Jumblies." 

On  the  other  hand  Homer  would  sink 
into  the  limbo  to  which  you  consigned 
Moliere.  If  we  may  judge  a  theory  by  its 
results,  when  compared  with  the  deliberate 
verdict  of  the  world,  your  aesthetic  does  not 
seem  to  hold  water.  The  "  Odyssey  "  is  not 
really  inferior  to  "  Ulalume,"  as  it  ought  to 
be  if  your  doctrine  of  poetry  were  correct, 
nor  "Le  Festin  de  Pierre"  to  "Undine." 
Yet  you  deserve  the  praise  of  having  been 
constant,  in  your  poetic  practice,  to  your 
poetic  principles  —  principles  commonly 
deserted  by  poets  who,  like  Wordsworth, 
have  published  their  aesthetic  system.  Your 
pieces  are  few;  and  Dr.  Johnson  would 
have  called  you,  like  Fielding,  "a  barren 
rascal."  But  how  can  a  writer's  verses  be 
numerous  if  with  him,  as  with  you,  "  poetry 
is  not  a  pursuit  but  a  passion  .  .  .  which 
cannot  at  will  be  excited  with  an  eye  to  the 
paltry  compensations  or  the  more  paltry 
commendations  of  mankind ! "  Of  you  it 
may  be  said,  more  truly  than  Shelley  said  it 
of  himself,  that  "to  ask  you  for  anything 
human,  is  like  asking  at  a  gin-shop  for  a  leg 
of  mutton." 


84 


TO    EDGAR    ALLAN    POE 

Humanity  must  always  be,  to  the  majority 
of  men,  the  true  stuff  of  poetry;  and  only  a 
minority  will  thank  you  for  that  rare  music 
which  (like  the  strains  of  the  fiddler  in  the 
story)  is  touched  on  a  single  string,  and  on 
an  instrument  fashioned  from  the  spoils  of 
the  grave.  You  chose,  or  you  were  destined 

To  vary  from  the  kindly  race  of  men  ; 

and  the  consequences,  which  wasted  your 
life,  pursue  your  reputation. 

For  your  stories  has  been  reserved  a 
boundless  popularity,  and  that  highest  suc 
cess —  the  success  of  a  perfectly  sympa 
thetic  translation.  By  this  time,  of  course, 
you  have  made  the  acquaintance  of  your 
translator,  M.  Charles  Baudelaire,  who  so 
strenuously  shared  your  views  about  Mr. 
Emerson  and  the  Transcendentalists,  and 
who  so  energetically  resisted  all  those  ideas 
of  "progress"  which  "came  from  Hell  or 
Boston."  On  this  point,  however,  the  world 
continues  to  differ  from  you  and  M.  Baude 
laire,  and  perhaps  there  is  only  the  choice 
between  our  optimism  and  universal  suicide 
or  universal  opium-eating.  But  to  discuss 
your  ultimate  ideas  is  perhaps  a  profitless 
digression  from  the  topic  of  your  prose 
romances. 

An  English  critic  (probably  a  Northerner 

85 


TO    EDGAR    ALLAN    POE 

at  heart)  has  described  them  as  "  Hawthorne 
and  delirium  tremens."  I  am  not  aware 
that  extreme  orderliness,  masterly  elabora 
tion,  and  unchecked  progress  towards  a  pre 
determined  effect  are  characteristics  of  the 
visions  of  delirium.  If  they  be,  then  there  is 
a  deal  of  truth  in  the  criticism,  and  a  good 
deal  of  delirium  tremens  in  your  style.  But 
your  ingenuity,  your  completeness,  your 
occasional  luxuriance  of  fancy  and  wealth  of 
jewel-like  words,  are  not,  perhaps,  gifts 
which  Mr.  Hawthorne  had  at  his  command. 
He  was  a  great  writer  —  the  greatest  writer 
in  prose  fiction  whom  America  has  produced. 
But  you  and  he  had  not  much  in  common, 
except  a  certain  mortuary  turn  of  mind  and 
a  taste  for  gloomy  allegories  about  the 
workings  of  conscience. 

I  forbear  to  anticipate  your  verdict  about 
the  latest  essays  of  American  fiction.  These 
by  no  means  follow  in  the  lines  which  you 
laid  down  about  brevity  and  the  steady 
working  to  one  single  effect.  Probably  you 
would  not  be  very  tolerant  (tolerance  was 
not  your  leading  virtue)  of  Mr.  Roe,  now 
your  countrymen's  favourite  novelist.  He  is 
long,  he  is  didactic,  he  is  eminently  unin 
spired.  In  the  works  of  one  who  is,  not  what 
you  once  called  yourself,  a  Bostonian,  you 
would  admire,  at  least,  the  acute  observa- 


TO    EDGAR    ALLAN    POE 

tion,  the  subtlety,  and  the  unfailing  distinc 
tion.  But,  destitute  of  humour  as  you  unhap 
pily  but  undeniably  were,  you  would  miss,  I 
fear,  the  charm  of  "Daisy  Miller."  You 
would  admit  the  unity  of  effect  secured 
in  "  Washington  Square,"  though  that  effect 
is  as  remote  as  possible  from  the  terror  of 
"The  House  of  Usher"  or  the  vindictive 
triumph  of  "The  Cask  of  Amontillado." 

Farewell,  farewell,  thou  sombre  and  soli 
tary  spirit:  a  genius  tethered  to  the  hack 
work  of  the  press,  a  gentleman  among 
canaille^  a  poet  among  poetasters,  dowered 
with  a  scholar's  taste  without  a  scholar's 
training,  embittered  by  his  sensitive  scorn, 
and  all  unsupported  by  his  consolations. 


i  No  reference,  of  course,  is  intended  to  the  great 
American  writers  of  Poe's  day,  but  to  the  lower  set  of 
hacks  who  were  his  enemies. 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 

on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 
Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall. 

— ff- 


NOV25196906 


BERKELEY  LIBRARIES 


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